A Colombian congressman filed charges against Alvaro Uribe Wednesday because, according to the testimony of a demobilized paramilitary leader, the former President was one of the founders of a well-known paramilitary group in the time Uribe was governor in his home department Antioquia.
Socialist Representative Ivan Cepeda told press he filed the criminal charges after videotaping the testimony from a jailed paramilitary leader who accuses Uribe of having formed the Bloque Metro, one of the paramilitary groups that was active in Antioquia.
After filing charges, Cepeda distributed the recorded statement of ex-paramilitary Pablo Hernan Sierra Garcia, alias “Alberto Guerrero,” in which the former leader of the Cacique Pipinta Bloc points out that the paramilitary group used one of Uribe’s estates as their base of operations.
Uribe’s brother Santiago Uribe, businessman Luis Alberto Villegas Uribe and his brother, deputy Juan Guillermo Villegas Uribe, as well as paramilitary businessman Santiago Gallon Henao were co-founders of the now-defunct Bloque Metro, said the former paramilitary.
According to Sierra, the paramilitary group used Uribe’s farmhouse “Guacharacas” as the home base from where the group committed massacres and forcefully displaced locals.
Sierra ended the statement reiterating earlier claims that the AUC collected funds to support Uribe’s 2002 and 2006 presidential campaigns and rallied popular support in certain regions of Colombia for his elections.
The Bloque Metro was led by former military Carlos Mauricio Garcia Fernandez, alias “Doble Cero,” but was eliminated by the rival paramilitary group “Cacique Nutibara,” of “Don Berna” in 2004. Doble Cero was executed.