Bogota. The long-awaited and extremely publicized trial in opposition to the previous president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe (2002-210), the primary former president within the historical past of the nation to be prosecuted in courtroom, started yesterday.
Sandra Heredia, choose 44 of the circuit of this capital, declared the start of the felony course of at 8:30 this morning, within the midst of an excellent media show and excessive consideration from Colombian society, which adopted all through the day the displays by the prosecution and protection of the previous president, accused of manipulating witnesses and committing procedural fraud.
At the start of the listening to, the prosecutor accountable for the case, Gilberto Villarreal, managed to additionally embrace the crime of bribing witnesses, whereas Uribe’s protection, led by the controversial lawyer Jaime Granados, requested in useless that the annulment of every part that has been completed, alleging that there was a violation of due course of and the appropriate to protection.
Uribe, who in accordance with authorized specialists was a sufferer of his personal invention, by making an attempt to open a felony investigation in opposition to Senator Iván Cepeda for, supposedly, inducing some residents disadvantaged of their liberty to testify in opposition to the previous Government, ended up prosecuted for this identical crime, in what many jurists describe because the boomerang impact.
A number of hours after the primary listening to, Cepeda himself acknowledged that this episode ought to be a trigger for celebration, because it represents progress within the democratization of justice and Colombian society, stressing that it was the primary time {that a} former president of the republic should seem earlier than the courts as an accused.
The assertion by the senator of the Historic Pact, the federal government coalition that led Gustavo Petro to the presidency in 2022, coincided with an in depth assertion by the previous head of state earlier than a swarm of media microphones and cameras.
From certainly one of his farms, within the metropolis of Rionegro, Uribe complained that it appears that evidently the ensures don’t apply to me, after which harshly criticized all of the magistrates who needed to do with the investigations which have introduced him earlier than the judicial courts. .
In keeping with Uribe, justice officers leaked unconnected items to some media shops, producing the matrix of his guilt earlier than going to trial. They believed a prisoner sentenced to 40 years in jail, mentioned Uribe in reference to Juan Guillermo Monsalve, the primary witness within the case.
In an lively tone, however arguing like a sufferer, the previous president affirmed that his political antagonists ended up changing into judicial executioners and – with out mentioning names – he assured that a lot of them have been accomplices and allies of the extinct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
I’ve by no means deceived justice and my public life doesn’t know lies, Uribe assured a couple of hours earlier than the beginning of the trial in opposition to him. Specialist attorneys contemplate that the judicial course of in opposition to Uribe has been meticulous and has an plentiful arsenal of proof, primarily based primarily on testimonies.
If discovered responsible, the previous president might be sentenced to as much as twelve years in jail, a penalty contemplated by the codes for the crimes of procedural fraud and bribery of witnesses in a felony course of.
