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Colombia . With 850,000 votes, the highest voter turnout of a senator in the history of the country, and two weeks before Uvan Duque, his electoral candidate, assumes the presidency of the Republic, no one doubted that Álvaro Uribe would become in the new president of Congress
But a few hours before his coronation on July 20, the most powerful politician of the year. recent history of Colombia has decided to withdraw.
Although this dignity was in the hands of one of his most faithful squires, Ernesto Macías, few people understood the reasons why Uribe had been deprived of the opportunity to impose the presidential belt in Duque. At the Casa de Nariño
On Tuesday, the country learned from its own mouth what was behind this decision that even baffled its bench of the Democratic Center
Via Twitter, the former president announced that he was resigning to his parliamentary nomination because of a call to question the Supreme Court of Justice: "They have not heard me before. I feel morally prevented from being a senator. I will send my letter of resignation so that my defense does not interfere with the duties of the Senate. "
His resignation has already been drafted but has not officially arrived at the Senate secretariat for consideration by the plenary.
the only announcement and the contents of the case against Uribe at the Court Supreme triggered a political and judicial storm in a key transition for the country, which in ten days will have a rush to the return of Uribe to power
For the first time in the history of the country, a former President of the Republic was summoned by the courts to answer charges of corruption and procedural fraud, punishable by penalties of up to ten years.
the process refers to alleged behavior committed since February, its genesis dates back to almost three decades.
The Guacharacas file
Indeed, this relationship The alleged formation of paramilitary groups in San Roque, a municipality in the north-east of Antioquia where Guacharacas is located, the ancient emblematic hacienda of Uribe Vélez .
Juan Guillermo Monsalve, an expat sentenced to 37 years He assured the court that the alleged bishops of the former president, whose representative Álvaro Hernán Prada and the lawyer Diego Cadena, pressed him and him offered advantages to change the testimony that he had given in the lawsuit that Uribe had instituted against Senator Iván. Cepeda.
In this courtroom he said that it was false that Cepeda had paid him to testify against Uribe .
The man, 40, is the son of Oscar Monsalve, the butler of Guacharacas since 1986 until the end of 1996, and said that he knew how the germ paramilitarism was created through the creation of the metro block, of which he was a part.
This version is one of the fundamental pieces of the trial that is being followed, in the Superior Court of Medellín, of the breeder and brother of the former president, Santiago Uribe, for the first time. Homicide and the conformation of the paramilitary group "The 12 Apostles". 19659002] This week, in several statements, the former president ratified his version: he assured that he and his younger brother are victims of a "media and judicial" conspiracy allegedly orchestrated by Cepeda.
"I asked the citizens to inform me about cases I know about the handling of witnesses against me (…) .They paid witnesses against us." The Court l & # 39; Unknown, I exercise my right to disassemble these testimonies, but the political and journalistic pressure prevails. "
However, the Criminal Chamber of the Court drew other conclusions. In February, he did not find it worthwhile to investigate Cepeda and, instead, he copied copies against ex-president Uribe and several of his relatives for being suspected of having been arrested. manipulating witnesses
. the businessman Juan Guillermo Villegas Uribe, friend of the former president, has spoken with the father and other relatives of Monsalve with whom, according to the Court, it was planned to discredit the testimony about the paramilitary presence in Guacharacas
But the decision to call the investigation of the president is based on new testimony and recordings. The latter were made, in large part, by Monsalve himself and his wife. Through a sophisticated clock, the two recorded conversations with lawyer Diego Cadena, lawyer of the ex-principal
The investigation, which was reactivated by the complaints of the lawyer of Cepeda, Reinaldo Villalba, documented at least three visits to the maximum security pavilion. in La Picota from Cadena's lawyer to meet Monsalve.
The approaches, says the Court, were made in two ways. On the one hand, a former paramilitary of Huila, Carlos Lopez, alias Caliche, reportedly contacted Monsalve and told him that he was a "very big man" (the deputy Prada, president of the Democratic Center in this department) knew that they were friends and that he had approached to convince him to record a video in which he "retracted his testimonies and reproached Cepeda for having offered him benefits to make statements".
In addition, it was "urgent" to obtain the evidence because the video was going to be filed in the Supreme Court before February 23. This day has expired the time limit for the defense of Uribe to file its action for annulment against the inhibitor in favor of Cepeda.
The former paramilitary was allegedly targeted by his cellmate, Enrique Pardo Hasche, sentenced to 29 years for the abduction, in 1991, of the businessman Eduardo Puyana, father-in-law of former President Andres Pastrana.
The Court says that & # 39; Caliche & # 39; announced in Monsalve that a lawyer was going to be sent to his cell in Bogotá to record the video. Indeed, Cadena tried to interview on February 21 with Monsalve, but he refused. A day later, with the intervention of Pardo Hasche, he managed to achieve his goal
. The same day, Uribe's lawyer Jaime Lombana and her stepmother, Maria Mercedes Williamson, entered the prison to visit Pardo.
"Cadena and Romero were sitting at one table and Pardo at another, accompanied by Dr. Lombana and Dr. Williamson Monsalve was the last to arrive on the site and guided by the signs of Pardo Hasche went to the table where were Diego Cadena and Hector Romero (lawyer of Monsalve).
During the conversation, Cadena tells Monsalve to act on behalf of the doctor Álvaro Uribe Vélez and asks him to sign a document previously prepared to present it with the appeal for annulment against the decision February ", says the Supreme Court.
The High Court has the letter signed by Monsalve with an asterisk in which he warns that he was doing so under the pressure of the lawyers Cadena and Enrique Pardo.
And although there are audios of the process that have already been revealed, the Court has other cases in the case that allegedly Uribe tells Cadena how to approach Monsalve and the version he hopes to achieve
"C & # 39; was a trap & # 39;
But the version of Uribe is radically opposed. He says that Pardo and Prada's representative both were victims of a trap that eventually sprayed his lawyer Lombana.
"Mrs. Vicky Jaramillo told me that the witness Juan Guillermo Monsalve was repenting, that he wanted to correct the falsehoods against me, she knew by Ricardo Williamson, the brother-in-law of the detainee Enrique Pardo ( …) I told him to tell the lawyer, who then contacted Mr. Monsalve, "Uribe told the country in the networks.
He added:" It's a good thing. said that (Monsalve) had sought legal advice and security, which I reacted by saying that he did it publicly and in court. Mr. Monsalve has tried to involve other people in the same trap, among them doctors Jaime Lombana, Ernesto Macias, Paloma Valencia, a deputy of Huila and Álvaro Hernán Prada, "Uribe writes in the statement released And at the same time, he prevented the Senate from absentee until August 3 for a fracture by falling off a mare.
This announcement suspended not only his resignation from the mare. 39, but the court's decision to keep your case or send it to the Attorney General's office.The latter scenario has been considered by some critics of Uribe as a shortcut to stay outside the orbit of the High Court.
However it is emphatic: "I have never evaded the Court for what they now invent that the resignation of the Senate is to take away the competition . The accusation about witnesses who bases me on facts as a senator, which upholds the jurisdiction of the Court.
Conscious judges of the process stated that the law is clear when they state that after the resignation, the file must be forwarded to the prosecutor's office because the investigations have nothing to do with their role. of a member of the Congress
. copies to the accuser to investigate the Cadena lawyer and the court called to testify to 31 people, including convicts Enrique Pardo, Senator Cepeda and several paramilitaries.
The key parts of the process [19659002] Juan Guillermo Monsalve
He is an exparamilitar, 40 years old, son of the mayordomo of Guacharacas, the once emblematic hacienda of Uribe Vélez in San Roque, at northeast of Antioquia. He is sentenced to 37 years for paramilitarism. He claims to have gone to the metro block of self-defense groups created by several breeders in the area.
Diego Cadena
He is a criminal lawyer and claims to have the power of former President Uribe to handle some court cases on his behalf. As part of this mandate, he entered La Picota prison three times after learning that ex-paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve had expressed his intention to overthrow a testimony against the Uribe
Enrique Pardo Hasche
of prison for his participation in the abduction of the father-in-law of Andrés Pastrana. He was a cell mate of the ex-paramilitary Monsalve and in that role he sent the message, along with one of Álvaro Uribe's advisers, Vicky Jaramillo, that he was interested in rectifying his statements. .
Álvaro Hernán Prada
Representative in the House of the Democratic Center and leader of this party in the department of Huila. He has been called upon to make an investigation by the Supreme Court of Justice in the same process as that pursued against the former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Prada has already been informed and claims that he was a victim of a trap and that he does not know Monsalve
Source: El Tiempo, GDA
