Colombia: Judge rules probe into former leader Uribe can proceed

The choose dismissed a request by the legal professional normal to shelve the witness-tampering case in opposition to the previous president.

A choose has dominated that an investigation into Colombia's former President Alvaro Uribe can proceed [File: Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters]

A choose in Colombia has dismissed a request to shelve a witness tampering investigation into former President Alvaro Uribe.

The previous chief is being investigated in relation to allegations he tampered with witnesses in an try and discredit accusations he had ties to right-wing paramilitaries.

Decide Carmen Helena Ortiz on Wednesday dismissed a request by the nation’s legal professional normal’s workplace to halt the investigation.

The workplace had mentioned the allegations don't “have the traits of crime”.

Nevertheless, Ortiz mentioned “it's clear for the chambers that there exists a potential speculation in regards to the materials nature of the crime of bribery”.

“The chambers rejects the petition for preclusion of the investigation for the crimes of penal bribery and procedural fraud,” she mentioned.

Critics have acccused the legal professional normal’s workplace of going mild on Uribe, who served as president from 2002 to 2010 and stays extensively influential.

Colombia’s Supreme Courtroom in 2018 launched an investigation into Uribe, who was on the time serving as a senator, and his associates had bribed and pressured potential witnesses throughout the probe. Uribe stepped down from his publish, testified in 2019 behind closed doorways, and was positioned below home arrest in August 2020. A choose lifted the home arrest order two months later.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Courtroom, which was initially main the investigation as a result of it involved a sitting legislator, handed the case to the legal professional normal’s workplace after Uribe left workplace.

Critics have mentioned Uribe’s resignation was a ploy to have the case moved to a much less rigorous authorized physique.

The previous chief stays a starkly polarising determine in Colombia.

Critics say that he was complicit in an array of human rights abuses dedicated throughout his presidency below his hardline stance in opposition to leftist armed teams, notably the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC],

Supporters and allies say he was elementary in weakening the FARC after years of lethal civil struggle.

The FARC and the federal government signed a peace deal in 2016.