Cepeda files criminal complaint against De la Espriella over paramilitary ties – Colombia News

The leftist candidate in Colombia’s election race, Senator Ivan Cepeda, announced a criminal complaint against his far-right opponent for allegedly belonging to the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC.

In a press conference, Cepeda said that his team filed a criminal complaint before the Prosecutor General’s Office and the International Criminal Court to investigate whether De la Espriella “directly belonged to and acted as part of the AUC” as the then-director of FIPAZ.

FIPAZ was an NGO that was created by the AUC commanders “to expand their social influence and by utilizing the organization’s resources” while they were negotiating their demobilization with the government of former President Alvaro Uribe.

According to Cepeda, his far-right opponent was “both recipient and provider of funding for paramilitary organizations.”

In a ruling I previously mentioned regarding the Central Bolívar Bloc in the Justice and Peace process, FIPAZ was included among the organizations that were part of the network of structures used by the paramilitaries during their period of public involvement in the Santa Fe de Ralito proceedings.

Ivan Cepeda

De la Espriella additionally played a key role in an alleged scheme to bribe Supreme Court judges to appoint Mario Iguaran as Prosecutor General in 2005 “to guarantee impunity for the paramilitary chiefs,” said Cepeda.

According to what [AUC commander] Salvatore Mancuso declared before a delegate prosecutor to the Supreme Court of Justice: in May 2005, the paramilitary groups moved their influences and paid bribes to achieve Iguaran’s election, and for that purpose, they received a sum exceeding 5 billion pesos which was distributed.

Ivan Cepeda

The Supreme Court ordered the Prosecutor General’s Office to open a criminal investigation into De la Espriella’s ties to the paramilitaries in 2011, but this investigation has disappeared, said Cepeda.

According to the leftist candidate, multiple paramilitary chief testified that his opponent played a key role in multiple bribery schemes that sought to corrupt the course of justice.