BOGOTA, Colombia – Colombia’s Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will no longer have jurisdiction to investigate allegations that tough former President Alvaro Uribe tried to force former paramilitaries to testify on his behalf in a case that has shaken the country.
The court stated that the judges did not understand that the accusations were similar to Uribe’s position as a senator, so they unanimously made the decision to refer the matter to the Attorney General’s Office.
The case is perceived as a key check for colombia’s judicial system, which has struggled to combat the highest degrees of impunity and has been besathed in recent weeks by Uribe supporters who argue that the Supreme Court is biased.
The High Court surprised Colombians in August when he ordered Uribe to be placed under space arrest as the investigation into the allegations that he insisted that witnesses retract statements that he had ties to paramilitaries.
Uribe’s political allies, including U. S. Vice President Mike Pence, have since denounced the court’s ruling and called for his release. Uribe’s son hired a Washington-based lobbying organization, DCI Group, a Medellin-based company for $40,000 a month to publicize the former president’s cause.
By law, the Supreme Court is guilty of handling any legal investigation involving elected officials. Uribe resigned from his Senate seat two weeks after being placed under space arrest. His lawyer argued that the Supreme Court had lost jurisdiction.
Court members aired on a Tuesday saying they had decided that Uribe’s case referred to “an investigation beyond his charge as a member of Congress. “
The Attorney General’s Office should, at least in theory, resume the investigation where the Supreme Court had left it, although there may be more disorders to resolve first.
The opposition legislator, Ivón Cepeda, whose fees have been the source of the legal challenge, envisages asking the leading prosecutor to be dismissed from the case.
“It is transparent that the leading prosecutor has close (current) (Ivan) Duke, the national government and former President Uribe,” Cepeda told Colombia’s BLU radio.
Meanwhile, Uribe’s defense team can eventually review to reactivate the investigation from the start, rather than proceeding with testimonies and data already gathered.
The witness forgery case is one of many investigations involving Uribe lately before the Supreme Court. The politician, regarded as one of the highest vital political figures in Colombia’s recent history, was also invited to testify before the High Court about 3 massacres and the death of a rights defender five decades of civil confrontation in Colombia.
Most likely, the jurisdiction of the ideal court in such cases will also be reviewed.
Uribe has long been persecuted through accusations of ties to the paramilitaries, militias that were shaped through landowners in the Colombian confrontation to quell the threats of the guerrillas, but who also engaged in brutal violence against civilians.
A memorandum classified in the past received from the National Security Archives shows that a senior Pentagon mp believed Uribe “almost certainly” had connections to the paramilitaries.
The Supreme Court’s 1554-page resolution on Uribe’s space arrest included transcripts of intercepted appeals that appeared that the former president was directly involved in his lawyer’s efforts to unload testimonies from imprisoned activists on his behalf.
Uribe vehemently denied the fees and his defense argued in court that he had only a minimal awareness of his lawyer’s activities.
José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch for the Americas, said that now all eyes would be on the prosecutor to ensure a fair and complete investigation.
“Prosecutors will have to make sure that an independent, independent and credible investigation of Uribe’s case is conducted,” he said. “Obviously, Uribe believes the attorney general’s workplace will be comfortable with him. It’s up to prosecutors to get it wrong. “