Colombia’s Supreme Court has ordered investigations to be opened against some 60 soldiers, policemen, politicians and prosecutors after testimony by the extradited drug trafficker, Juan Carlos “El Tuso” Sierra implicated them in the “parapolitics” scandal, Noticias Uno reported Wednesday.
Among the many officials incriminated in El Tuso’s testimony is the former director of the transit police, General Luis Alberto Moore Perea. El Tuso claims to have played soccer with Moore while there was an arrest warrant out against the trafficker.
His testimony also linked the former army commander General Mario Montoya with AUC paramilitaries.
Also to be investigated is the former head of Medellin’s Prosecutor General’s Office Guillermo Leon Valencia Cossio, who has just begun serving a 15 year sentence handed down last Thursday for his ties to the former paramilitary chief “Don Berna.”
In a previous testimony, El Tuso said that he paid lawmakers in 2006 to meet with then-Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo to demobilize as if he was a paramilitary and receive benefits granted to members of the AUC.
Sierra was also a key witness in the case against former Senator Mario Uribe, the cousin of former President Alvaro Uribe, and has claimed that Santiago Uribe, the brother of the former president was involved in drug trafficking.
He is currently detained in a federal prison in Warsaw, Virginia.