Colombian Congressman Ivan Cepeda Tuesday presented a case against former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for slander to the International Criminial Court (ICC).
The complaint regards comments made by Uribe in 2002 in which he accused the inhabitants of the San Jose de Apartado peace community, along with Jesuit Priest Javier Giraldo, of colluding with left-wing guerrillas. Following the accusations, 20 members of the peace community were murdered.
Colombian Congress investigated the accusations against Uribe, but the then-president was absolved of any wrongdoing.
Cepeda, a member of leftist political party Polo Democratico, requested copies of documents pertaining to the investigation and submitted them to the ICC to be examined.
The San Jose de Apartado peace community is a collective made up of displaced Colombians caught in the violent struggle between left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries in Uraba, a region in the Antioquia department. The community declared itself neutral in 1997. At least 150 of its members have since been assassinated.
The community was placed under the protection of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. On 21 February, 2005, eight members of the community were brutally slaughtered and dismembered. The dead included children of 2, 6, and 11 years old.
On August 9, ten Colombian soldiers were acquitted of the massacre.
