Colombian President Alvaro Uribe lashed out at the Supreme Court after Magistrate Yesid Ramirez asked the nation’s prosecutor general to open an investigation into allegations that the president’s son, Tomas Uribe, bribed congressmen to ensure his father’s re-election in 2006.
Uribe accused some Supreme Court magistrates of “destroying justice” and “replacing it with hatred,” but added that his son will cooperate with the prosecutor general’s investigation.
“When a judge makes a ruling motivated by hatred, he fails in his duty,” Uribe said.
“The Supreme Court of Justice sets a bad example with through a magistrate like Yesid Ramirez, who has done so much damage to Colombia,” Uribe added.
Uribe denied accusations that his son had intervened in the naming of two notaries. “This government assigned notaries based on merit,” he said.
The Colombian president said that his son had already complied with justice, when he testified to the Supreme Court regarding the allegations a year ago.
Uribe has continually clashed with the judiciary during his presidency. The “train crash” between Colombia’s executive and judicial branches led the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) to examine the court’s dealings, before reporting it was satisfied with the rulings handed down by the South American judicial body.