Colombia’s Prosecutor General has announced plans to question the extradited drug trafficker “El Tuso” about a conspiracy to discredit the Supreme Court.
According to newspaper El Espectador, a Bogota judge believes Juan Carlos Sierra, El Tuso was among those who worked alongside lawyer Sergio Gonzalez to smear Supreme Court judges.
Gonzalez was sentenced to 5 years and 10 months in jail Wednesday for instructing his client, former paramilitary chief Jose Orlando Moncada, alias “Tasmania,” to claim judge Ivan Velasquez had bribed him to accuse the then president Alvaro Uribe of ordering a murder.
According to other testimonies, El Tuso personally rewarded Tasmania with a series of benefits for lying about Velasquez, including protection for his family, a home in Medellin and payment of his mother’s debts.
The smear campaign against Velasquez was one of the main planks of a wider plot to discredit judges who were investigating Colombia’s “parapolitics” scandal — a term used to describe the collusion between members of the now defunct paramilitary organization and Congressmen, in which Uribe has been implicated.
The former president has been accused of conspiring against the Supreme Court — accusations which he denied under oath during Gonzalez’s trial last November.
El Tuso will be investigated for criminal libel for his part in the smear campaign, which the judge said yesterday had “affected the image and integrity of the magistrates, principally those who were investigating the links of politicians with paramilitary groups.”