In court, Uribe defends himself against fraud and bribery allegations – Colombia News

Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe on Monday took to the witness bench on Monday to defend himself against allegations he bribed witnesses to obfuscate his ties to a paramilitary group.

Uribe is Colombia’s first former president to stand trial over alleged criminal activity and is the first of more than 70 witnesses called by the defense.

Since February, when the trial began, dozens of witnesses were heard by the prosecution, which seeks to prove that Uribe sought to delegitimize witnesses and judicial authorities that tied the former president and his brother Santiago to the Bloque Metro paramilitary group.

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According to two surviving witnesses, the predecessor of the Bloque metro was founded on the Guacharacas estate when this property still belonged to the Uribe family.

Juan Guillermo Monsalve, whose father was the caretaker of the estate, testified that he trained with the Bloque Metro at Guacharacas and ran a cocaine laboratory for one of the Uribe family’s neighbors there.

According to Monsalve, Uribe used his position as governor of Antioquia to secure military backup for the paramilitary group while fighting guerrillas in the region.

Another former Bloque Metro member, Pablo Hernan Sierra, testified that he was in charge of stealing oil from a pipeline that crossed the estate.

Based on the testimonies by allegedly bribed witnesses, Uribe sued Senator Ivan Cepeda, falsely claiming that the leftist politician had bribed the witnesses.

The Supreme Court absolved Cepeda and accused Uribe of bribing witnesses instead in 2018, which forced the former president to abandon politics and renounce his congressional immunity in 2020.

In parallel proceedings, Uribe is being investigated for his alleged role in two massacres and the assassination of a human rights defender carried out by paramilitaries after the formation of the Bloque Metro.

The former president has denied involvement with paramilitary groups and, despite the court sentence, insists that he is the victim of a leftist  conspiracy.