A Bogota judge resumed the criminal proceedings against Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe after a higher court dismissed a request by the defense to remove the judge.
The judge suspended the hearings after the lawyers of the former president claimed that the judge lacked impartiality, effectively denying Uribe’s right to a fair trial.
The Superior Tribunal of Bogota dismissed this claim and ordered the resumption of the trial over Uribe’s alleged attempt to file fraudulent criminal charges against those who had denounced his alleged ties to paramilitary organization AUC.
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Evidence obtained by the Supreme Court suggests that these fabricated charges were made on the basis of testimonies from bribed witnesses.
The prosecutor in charge of the investigation accused Uribe’s defense of trying to delay the proceedings and had been in contempt of court.
In order to minimize the latest delay, the judge ordered to immediately resume the testimony of Senator Ivan Cepeda, one of Uribe’s alleged victims.
During the last hearing, Cepeda told the court how he ended up interviewing Pablo Hernan Sierra, a AUC unit commander who told him that he received training at the Uribe family’s estate in the Antioquia province in the 1990’s.
On Tuesday, Cepeda testified about another former member of the AUC, Juan Guillermo Monsalve, who claimed that he was recruited by the “Bloque Metro” group while his father worked at the Uribe estate.
Both claim that the former president and his brother Santiago were directly involved in the creation of “Bloque Metro” together with other former associates of the now-defunct Medellin Cartel.
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The trial against Uribe initially began in the Supreme Court in 2018, but was sent to a lower court after the former President resigned from the Senate, effectively renouncing his congressional privileges.
Uribe’s defense attorneys on multiple occasions tried to have the charges dismissed, but these attempts failed.
