In a press conference, broadcast live on Colombian national television, Uribe said that people who wanted to testify about things concerning national security are welcome at the Presidential Palace.
The president denied having aligned with paramilitary forces to get rid of political enemies.
“This government has prosecuted the paramilitaries and guerrillas exclusively with the institutions. If we had made an alliance with criminals to prosecute for example the guerrillas, surely we would’ve made more progress in the fight against them, but for democratic and christian reasons, we took only one path, the path of the institutions,” Uribe said.
Uribe had come under fire after his staff members met the lawyer of paramilitary leader ‘Don Berna’ and ‘Job’, a former member of the AUC that was suspected of still being involved with paramilitary forces until he was murdered in Medellín three weeks ago.
The staff members had met the paramilitary and the lawyer, because they allegedly had evidence that could incriminate magistrate Iván Velásquez, the judge responsible for the investigations against politicians with alleged ties to paramilitary groups.
Supreme Court president Francisco Javier Ricaurte said earlier Monday the government and paramilitaries were conspiring to discredit the Court and deligitimize its judges.
Uribe admitted the material handed by the paramilitaries wasn’t enough to incriminate the Court.
