Former senator Ruben Dario Quintero will become the second former congressman to be tried by Colombia’s Supreme Court, following accusations of receiving bribes from demobilized paramilitary warlord Freddy ‘El Aleman’ Rendon Herrera.
Herrera confessed this week to paying Quintero 100 million pesos (US$50,000) just before he was elected Senator for Cambio Radical in 2002.
Quintero waived immunity so that his case would pass to the Prosecutor’s Office. A number of former government officials tried for parapolitics have employed this strategy in order to be tried by the prosecution, which they feel will be more sympathetic.
On Monday, attorney Guillermo Mendoza Diago indicated that parapolitics cases assigned to the prosecution would be reviewed to determine whether or not they would return to the Criminal Chamber of the Court. In this way, he said, they would avoid any conflict of jurisdiction between the High Court and the prosecution.