In an exceptionally fierce letter, Colombia’s Inspector General rejected former President Alvaro Uribe’s criticism on the functioning of Colombia’s justice system.
In the open letter, Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez said that “the recent statement that ‘[former chief of staff] Bernardo Moreno was dismissed for fulfilling his duty in the middle of the Court’s coersion of the Inspector General’s Office’ is — apart from being a manifestation that does not correspond with the reality — a lighthearted and irresponsible statement.”
According to Ordoñez, Uribe’s statements were “designed to discredit and delegitimize those who exercize [their job] in compliance to their public function within the state.”
The Inspector General went on to ask Uribe to “keep the composure worthy of a former president of the republic” and to “not misuse his position as former head of state to baselessly question the the work carried out by the Inspector General’s Office in its persecution of corruption and its pursuit of common good.”
Ordoñez is the last of many political figures who rejected Uribe’s recent criticism. Representatives from both coalition and opposition parties and Uribe’s successor Juan Manuel Santos also condemned Uribe’s accusations that his former aides were politically prosecuted.
Uribe made his statements after his former intelligence chief was granted political asylum while under criminal investigation for the illegal wiretapping of supreme court magistrates, human rights organizations, opposition politicians and human rights organizations.