Colombia’s former chief prosecutor said Wednesday he has the evidence to see former President Alvaro Uribe convicted for two massacres.
In an interview with Semana, former Prosecutor General Eduardo Montealegre said he and his former deputy, Jorge Perdomo, are able to prove Uribe was involved in the El Aro and La Granja massacres when the far-right political patron of President Ivan Duque was governor of the Antioquia province in the late 1990’s.
Uribe tried to frame Montealegre and Perdomo while on trial on fraud and bribery charges last year, claiming they were conspiring against him, but failed.
The former chief prosecutor, who was ordered to investigate the massacres when he was in office between 2012 and 2016, continued the investigations and told Semana he will go to court as soon as the Supreme Court, which is closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, reopens.
Despite evidence Uribe has been involved in organized crime since before 1980 when his friends of the Ochoa crime family founded the Medellin Cartel, the far-right politician has evaded justice, but his time is up, Perdomo told Semana.
Uribe’s time has come to answer to justice. During his long political career, he has gotten away with all the crimes he has committed. He remained in impunity, he has managed to evade justice, but his time has come. Uribe is a war criminal.
Former chief prosecutor Eduardo Montealegre
Uribe called Montealegre a liar on Twitter and said his alleged involvement had been “totally disproven,” contradicting the court order to investigate the former president.
Duque’s political patron has come under increasing legal pressure over the past years.
Since 2018, the Supreme Court ordered the investigation of Uribe for allegedly manipulating witnesses who had testified he had co-founded a death squad, received illegally obtained intelligence reports on critics from the National Army and ordered election fraud to secure the election of the president.