Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office said Tuesday that it has formally accused former President Alvaro Uribe of fraud and bribery.
The announcement comes less than a month after Prosecutor General Luz Adriana Camargo took office.
The administration of Camargo’s predecessor, Francisco Barbosa, repeatedly asked courts to drop the charges, but without success.
Uribe’s legal problems began in 2018 when the Supreme Court found that the former president and multiple associates allegedly bribed witnesses in order to press bogus charges against Senator Ivan Cepeda.
The alleged conspiracy apparently sought to discredit Cepeda after the left-wing senator published a book about Uribe’s role in the creation of a paramilitary group in the 1990’s.
The Supreme Court absolved Cepeda and filed charges against Uribe and National Electoral Council Magistrate Alvaro Prada, who was a representative of Uribe’s far-right Democratic Center party at the time.
The high court lost its powers to investigate the former president in 2020 when Uribe resigned from the Senate, effectively renouncing the privileges granted to lawmakers.
Cepeda, who is formally a victim of Uribe’s alleged fraud and bribery practices, blocked the prosecution’s attempt to grant the former president impunity.
According to the latest prosecution statement, the prosecution is waiting for a court to schedule an indictment hearing.