The Supreme Court ordered the Prosecutor General to investigate possible witness tampering during the trial of former president of the senate, Luis Humberto Gomez Gallo, who was sentenced to nine years for para-politics in late May.
On May 25, after a trial that stopped and started various times over two years, the Supreme Court sentenced ex-conservative party senator, Luis Humberto Gomez Gallo, for ties to the Tolima bloc of the AUC.
Television newscast Uno reported that the Supreme Court wants the Prosecutor General to investigate weather the Special Prosecutor, Leonidas Rojas, fabricated a process of extortion against various demobilized members of the Tolima bloc of the AUC who testified against the ex-senator to discredit them.
The Supreme Court also is preoccupied with the Inspector General’s apparent disregard of knowledge of witness tampering saying, “It surprises the Court that Mr. Inspector General has not addressed this situation and has only proceed to downplay the witness.”
A number of defense lawyers and prosecutors will be the targets of this investigation into the obstruction of the justice system.
The first para-politics case against ex-Senate President Luis Humberto Gomez Gallo was dismissed by the Prosecutor General for a reported lack of evidence. In 2009, the Inspector General’s Office contested the dismissal and the ex-senator was re-arrested and the Supreme Court took over the investigation.
In 2010 the mother of a key witness against the conservative senator was murdered in an attack by armed men days before he was slated to testify in court.
A number of prosecution witnesses in para-politics trials against former politicians including that of Gomez Gallo’s were reported to be changing their stories in favor of the politicians midway through the justice process; actions that alarmed the Supreme Court. A video of a defense lawyer offering money to and threatening a witness in a para-politics case also surfaced in February of 2011.