Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe on Tuesday expressed his support for his former intelligence director’s political asylum in Panama.
According to Uribe, former intelligence officials who are investigated for the ilegal wiretapping of supreme court judges, journalists, politicians and human rights workers, “do not have guarantees and the persecution of them is also threatening their lives.”
The former president published a press release on his website, in which Uribe said the witnesses in the case against officials of intelligence agency DAS and the President’s Office have a “proven capacity to lie” and there are “clear signs of (them) being in the service of criminals.”
Uribe went on saying that the Supreme Court, that is investigating the wiretap scandal, committed an essential error to promote the unfounded assumption of the Presidency’s criminal intent to discredit the judicial body,” referring to staments made by supreme court magistrates after Uribe’s chief of staff was barred from office for 18 years for his responsibility in the wiretaping of and spying on the supreme court.
The former President again repeated his innocence in the scandal, saying “neve did I suggest and illegal activity.”
Uribe himself is investigated for his alleged role in the scandal by a House of Representatives commission. All other suspects are investigated by the Prosecutor General’s Office.Maria del Pilar Hurtado, who was found guilty by the country’s Inspector General’s Office is now in Panama where she was granted political asylum.