Colombian senator Ivan Cepeda received a funeral card allegedly signed by neo-paramilitary groups, local media reported Monday.
The death threat came just as the leftist Senator successfully achieved a senatorial debate over the alleged ties of former President Alvaro Uribe, who was elected to the senate earlier this year, after an initial attempt to debate his alleged criminal ties were shot down.
MORE: Debate over Uribe’s alleged paramilitary past shot down in Senate
Cepeda published a photo of the eerie card on his twitter account which shows a picture of Jesus Christ with text inviting the senator to his own funeral mass on November 28, 2014.
The card is signed by Darío Antonio Usuga and alias “Cesarin”; leaders of the Urabeños and Oficina de Envigado.
“We certify that the soul of Ivan Cepeda, Senator of the Democratic Pole, will participate perpetually,” reads the card.
According to Cepeda’s twitter account, he has informed the National Protection Unit.
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The letter also mentions the name of Manuel Cepeda, the senator’s father, who was a murdered in 1994 for being part of the Patriotic Union political party, which was meant to be the political arm of the FARC rebel group.
Cepeda, until last month a Representative to the House, demanded a debate on the alleged paramilitary links between Uribe and the paramilitary AUC after both were elected to Colombia’s highest legislative chamber.
The motion for the debate was dismissed by the Senate, where 10 senators face accusations of having ties to convicted criminals.
MORE: 10 Colombia Senators ‘inherit’ votes from jailed ex-Senators
However, the debate was revived on Monday by Senate President Jose David Name who said that the debate will be held in a Senate’s political oversight committee.
The debate that was shot down last week would have been carried out on the senate floor, as requested by Ivan Cepeda, but has now been revived and is now expected to take place in the Second Committee of the Senate.
MORE: Debate over Uribe’s alleged paramilitary past shot down in Senate
The president of the senate, Jose David Name, said on Tuesday the request for the debate in the Second Commission is expected to be requested by Ivan Cepeda and accepted by the majority of the 13 senators in the committee.
Colombia’s FM Radio reported that they were tipped off and told that the revival of the debate was with “guidance” from the presidential palace.
Members of Santos’s governing coalition, National Unity, who at first voted against the debate on the senate floor, are now expected to vote in favor of the debate in the Second Committee.
Members of the Senate’s Second Committee:
- Jimmy Chamorro (U Party)
- Mauricio Lizcano (U Party)
- José David Name (U Party)
- Jaime Durán Barrera (Liberal Party)
- Luis Fernando Velasco (Liberal Party)
- Carlos Fernando Galán (Radical Change Party)
- Nidia Marcela Osorio (Conservative Party)
- Teresita García Romero (Citizen’s Option Party)
- Iván Cepeda (Democratic Pole Party)
- Ana Mercedes (Democratic Center Party)
- Paola Holguín (Democratic Center Party)
- Thania Vega de Plazas (Democratic Center Party)
- Marcos Aníbal Avirama (ASI)
The senate president assured “this debate will happen in the Second Committee. It will happen,” according to FM Radio.
Uribe is accused of intimate ties with the paramilitary groups that wreaked havoc in Colombia between 1997 and 2006. Following a peace deal with the Uribe administration, the group formally demobilized. However, emergent groups like the Urabeños sprung from the remnants of the AUC.
Sources
- Iván Cepeda recibe carta intimidatoria de los Urabeños (El Espectador)
- Ivan Cepeda (Twitter)
- Congreso revive debate contra Álvaro Uribe Vélez por paramilitarismo (FM Radio)