2nd witness to governor’s ‘parapolitics’ withdraws testimony

 

A second witness to a Colombian ex-governor’s alleged ties to paramilitary groups on Monday revoked his testimony condemning the politician.

Guerrero is the second person to retract statements about Aguilar’s secret alliance with the paramilitaries while Governor of the northern department of .

Like Morales, Guerrero is now claiming he witnessed nothing of Aguilar’s paramilitary ties, in this case meetings between Aguilar and paramilitary in mid-2003 in the Santander town of Santa Helena.

Contrary to his original testimony, Guerrero says that although he saw the ex-governor meeting with people on a specific date, he did not know what was going on. “I don’t know if they were paramilitaries or civilians. I don’t know because I was not interested in the meeting,” said Guerrero.

According to newspaper Semana, Guerrero stood by his testimony that AUC members had arrived in Santa Helena during Aguilar’s governor election in 2003 in order to intimidate people into voting for Aguilar.

The prosecution against former governor Aguilar is trying to prove his ties with the AUC’s Central Bolivar and

For his part, Aguilar has claimed that the allegations hold no truth and the charges were simply hatched from political enemies.

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