Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe became president in 2002 with the help of a paramilitary group the US government had designated a foreign terrorist organization, according to a former member.
A Medellin Court ordered to investigate the Bloque Metro’s use of terrorism to help Uribe become president in 2011 already, but has been stonewalled by the prosecution for a decade.
In fact, the prosecution denied the group allegedly founded by Uribe in 1996 even existed for years, according to the court.
In a testimony that came to light last year, a former member of Bloque Metro told a prosecutor in detail how the paramilitary group terrorized people into voting for Uribe in the presidential election organized and monitored by the father of President Ivan Duque.
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The damning testimony was given by former paramilitary fighter “Diomedes” in 2011 already, but didn’t come to light until February last year.
What followed was an awkward moment in which the judge reminded the prosecution to investigate the former president and Duque’s political patron.
Extradited paramilitary commander confirmed the claims of Diomedes in 2013
The prosecution never investigated the paramilitary group allegedly founded by Uribe, claiming it never took part in the demobilization process of paramilitary organization AUC agreed in 2005.
The Bloque Metro couldn’t possibly have taken part in this group because it was exterminated for objecting to the “narcofied” demobilization process between the former president and the AUC two months after Uribe took office.
Following the paramilitary group’s extermination and the AUC’s demobilization deal, the prosecution simply denied that the Bloque Metro — which at one point had 1,500 fighters — ever existed.
Crimes committed by the paramilitary group were attributed to common criminals or groups that did take part in the AUC’s demobilization process until Medellin’s Superior Tribunal stepped in.
Uribe tied to yet another massacre, despite extermination of paramilitary group he allegedly founded
Uribe is currently on trial for allegedly trying to tamper witnesses who claim the former president founded the Bloque Metro with his brother and befriended drug traffickers.