In a complete secret and with interceptions, the Supreme Court investigated Senator Uribe

Due to events occurring after the High Court requested the opening of an investigation on the ex-president, on February 16, the court ruled in favor of the court. to hear to question the alleged crimes of corruption.

This was an investigation in the greatest secrecy. Nobody, except for six officials of the Supreme Court of Justice, knew that the Criminal Chamber's Trial Room 2 had some clues for structuring a new case against the ex -President and Senator Alvaro Uribe Vélez. They intercepted more than 10 cell phones, followed and listened to people close to the ex-principal, until they reported that Uribe, after that the court ordered him to be investigated on February 16, allegedly attempted to manipulate and even bribe witnesses. The information was compiled in three notebooks that are today the cornerstone of the process

(In context: Iván Cepeda reveals evidence that could engage Uribe with the manipulation of false witnesses)

Five months and began after the Supreme Court announced that it was filing the complaint filed by Uribe against MP Iván Cepeda for alleged manipulation of witnesses and ordered that Uribe himself should be investigated . The next day, February 17, anonymous information and various sources reached the high court to warn the magistrates that their investigations were just beginning. They were also given a name that up to now was not on their radar and that was the key to the new file: Álvaro Hernán Prada.

As confirmed by court sources at El Espectador the representative in the House would be a vital link between Senator Uribe and the witnesses who spoke against him. In particular, Prada would have been the person who led Juan Guillermo Monsalve, one of the key witnesses of the first lawsuit against Uribe, to contact the lawyer Diego Javier Cadena, who was finally in charge offer money or manipulate in favor of the former president and today senator. The evidence against the representative led to the high court also called to investigate the same facts as Uribe.

(You might be interested: The appeal to the question was surprising: the defense of Uribe Velez)

Justice issued a press release in which he specified that members of Congress Álvaro Uribe and Álvaro Hernán Prada will be questioned for the alleged crimes of corruption and procedural fraud but before going to the diligence, they know the tests that engage them. In addition, the case will be accompanied and supervised by the Attorney General's Office and both members of Congress will have sufficient time to prepare their defense against the charges that the High Court is charging them.

Investigations against former president Álvaro Uribe is part of the political confrontation that he has had for a long time with Senator Iván Cepeda . It was precisely a political control debate on paramilitarism in Antioquia, promoted by Cepeda on December 17, 2014, at the origin of the investigations. On the same day, Uribe went to the Supreme Court of Justice to denounce Cepeda for the misdemeanors of abuse of power, procedural fraud and aggravated libel, allegedly derived from the manipulation of witnesses against Uribe, taking advantage of his parliamentary status.

(See also: The key figures in the trial against Senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez)

The Supreme Court took three years and two months to consider the complaint of Uribe and the 16 February 2018, with a presentation by the magistrate Jose Luis Barceló, in a decision of 218 pages, he returned the case. He not only refrained from opening an investigation against Iván Cepeda, but determined that who should be sought for alleged manipulation of witnesses was the plaintiff, that is to say, Former president Uribe . In the same decision, investigations were ordered to a lawyer and the examination of several cases related to Uribe, while special protection was requested for three witnesses.

It is from this moment that the elements of the new survey have begun to be configured. . In its communication, the Court indicated that, in response to the 16 February ruling and, apparently, with its consent, persons close to former President Uribe allegedly began new acts of witness manipulation. "In the preliminary inquiry, ordered on February 22, to corroborate these last facts, the Court found elements of judgment to initiate this process ." In addition, he reiterated that in response to a request from Uribe himself, his free version had been accepted for the facts by February 16.

(In the context: Interceptions of the Court that led to the investigation of Senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez)

In the same statement, the Court also stated that she had asked the prosecution to investigate facts related to the same case and specifically transmitted intercepts of phone calls between lawyers Diego Javier Cadena Ramírez and ex-prosecutor Hilda Janeth Niño Farfán According to the high court, it seems that this former employee would have committed to discrediting the criminal investigation that was conducted against Santiago Uribe, brother of the former president, currently being prosecuted by justice in the court file known as Los 12 Apóstoles. 90s.

At the time, the High Court asked the Office of Witness Protection of the Procuratorate and the Inpec to intensify the security measures for detainees Juan Guillermo Monsalve, Pablo Hernán Sierra and Carlos Enrique Areiza Arango . As the public knows, Areiza, who has agreed to have lied in the lawsuit against the ex-governor of Antioquia, Luis Alfredo Ramos, was murdered last April. The other two witnesses, Monsalve and Sierra, remain deprived of their liberty and will now be the key to clarify the new judicial chapter against the former president Uribe

(Also read: "We will prove my innocence": the representative Álvaro Hernán Prada)

The senator's reaction, as soon as he heard the decision, was to announce that he would resign. According to experts, this is a strategic move, because when leaving Congress, the former president loses the jurisdiction that allows the Supreme Court to conduct an investigation and now the case will become the purview of the prosecution. The last word, however, is the high court that must determine whether the crimes for which Senator Uribe is the subject of an investigation – bribery and procedural fraud – are related to his inauguration as congressman. But, moreover, he must do the same with the other key process: the handling of witnesses that would have occurred in previous years.