Former paramilitary “El Negro Vladimir” has told the Colombian Supreme Court that half the country’s politicians visited AUC founder Fidel Castaño’s house during the height of the slain leader’s power, newspaper El Espectador reported Friday.
According to Baquero, former Justice Minister Alberto Santofimio and Tubary Ayala were among the congressmen, mayors and governors who visited the AUC leader seeking political and electoral support during his reign.
Speaking at the trial of former congressman Cesar Perez Garcia, facing charges for the 1988 slaughter of 43 people at a massacre in Segovia, Antioquia, the ex AUC-commander claimed Castaño ordered audio and video recordings to be made of the meetings.
Baquero said, “It was a strategy to record conversations with soldiers, politicians and businessmen. The reason was that if they were going to back out on pacts we would take out the videos — in this country with leaders who run away, where everyone washes their hands of blame, it [was] necessary to have effective proof which [could] reveal their releation with us.”
The former AUC senior commander said following his capture he told a prosecutor where all the recordings could be found, a location which also housed the weapon that killed Luis Carlos Galan.”
But the prosecutor was “too afraid to investigate,” he said, and never went to look.