Former Colombian Congress President Miguel Pinedo Vidal surrendered to authorities Wednesday after being called to trial for his alleged paramilitary links, newspaper El Espectador reported Wednesday.
The former senator of the Radical Change party handed himself over to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Pinedo Vidal is accused of having close ties with the former commander of the AUC’s Tayrona Bloc, Hernan Giraldo Serna alias “El Viejo.” Apparently, the official held several meetings with El Viejo in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Santa Marta, in the Magdalena department, before the parliamentary elections of 1998 and 2002.
“I will not flee the court and I am determined that I will show my innocence,” Pinedo Vidal said in 2008 when he was first accused of parapolitics.
Along with dozens of other former members of Congress, the lawmaker initially resigned to avoid being investigated by the Supreme Court.