After Colombia’s Supreme Court dismissed the “Raul Reyes” files as inadmissible in legal proceedings, there is a chance that former Senator Piedad Cordoba could seek to regain her seat, El Espectador reported.
Piedad Cordoba was officially dismissed from the Senate in November 2010, after Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez had barred her from holding office for 18 years because she had “collaborated with and promoted” the FARC.
She has contested her removal from office ever since and much of her defense could now rest upon how much of
Ordoñez’s evidence against her was contained in the FARC computer files seized during Colombia’s deadly 2008 raid on “Raul Reyes”‘ camp in Ecuador.
Former Inspector General Carlos Gustavo Arrieta said that “I share the concerns with the case of Senator Piedad Cordoba and indeed one would think that any investigation or sanction that has been adopted based on the emails on Raul Reyes’ computer should have legal basis.”
“That is a domino that will begin to fall, whatever the investigations are that had been based on fact,” he continued.
The Supreme Court announced Wednesday that the files were inadmissible because of a break in the chain of custody when the computers were retrieved, Colombian authorities did not follow international protocol.
The announcement came during the trial of socialist congressman Wilson Borja, who had been charged with collaborating with the FARC based on the files’ veracity, which could also not be fully determined.
The court’s decision virtually ends all cases against public figures who were accused by the former government of collaborating with the FARC. The only politician whose case remains open is that of Cordoba.