Álvaro Uribe: the complaint with the Supreme Court for the transfer of processes to the Prosecutor’s Office – Investigative Unit

According to the judicial accounts of the defense of Álvaro Uribe Vélez, the Investigation Chamber of the Supreme Court had until last Thursday to define whether or not it retains jurisdiction over the investigation that maintains the ex-president with an assurance measure and house arrest for alleged bribery in criminal proceedings and procedural fraud.

For his lawyers, headed by Jaime Granados, the deadline was peremptory and the law is clear in stating that, after his resignation from the Senate, the Court ceased to be a natural judge of the now former senator.

(We invite you to read: The 7 letters from the Court to send Álvaro Uribe home)

However, the magistrates – who have already addressed Uribe’s defense petition in two sessions to forward the file to the Prosecutor’s Office – have made it known that the five-day term does not apply to them.

(You may be interested: What Salvatore Mancuso confessed about the El Aro massacre)

In addition, they are studying sending other processes, such as the El Aro massacre. For Uribe’s defense, he must go to the ordinary courts or to the Chamber’s Indictment Commission. But the Court warned that it took up that case as a crime against humanity and by referral from the Prosecutor’s Office, where they now want me to return.

Case with detainee

EL TIEMPO confirmed that Uribe’s defense team has several judicial movements ready to get the cases against Uribe out of the high court now if it is not pronounced.

“We studied various judicial strategies and we will reveal them in due course,” said Granados.

This newspaper established that they contemplate resorting to a guardianship that forces the Court to speed up the decision on its jurisdiction.

(Also: Uribe’s defense aces against what he calls revenge by the Court)

They say that, although the Court took 9 months to define Uribe’s legal situation, despite the fact that Granados spoke of a 10-day period, things have changed.

“Now there is a person deprived of liberty (Uribe has been on his farm for 27 days). In addition, to define the legal situation they had to analyze 384 pages, and in this case there is only the defense request (of 60 pages) and the concept of the Attorney General’s Office (of 21 pages), which already said that the case should go to the Prosecutor’s Office “Said those close to the case.

Monsalve, Yepes and Reyes

And they added that several have argued that the Court ceased to be Uribe’s natural judge, including former prosecutor Alfonso Gómez.

But voices such as that of former Constitutional Court magistrate José Gregorio Hernández warn that only the Court knows the entire file and can make a decision with knowledge.

(We invite you to read: This is the Court’s investigation of Álvaro Uribe for the El Aro massacre)

In any case, the defense is ready to activate international bodies to demonstrate alleged violations of Uribe’s procedural rights. Víctor Mosquera, part of the team, achieved (in 2018) a ruling in favor of former minister Andrés Felipe Arias (convicted of Agro Ingreso Seguro) from the United Nations Human Rights Committee. But those rulings are not binding on the country.

For this reason, Uribe’s defense has lined up batteries in discrediting the star witness in the case: Juan Guillermo Monsalve, son of the butler of Guacharacas, one of the Uribe Vélez farms.

Monsalve recorded Diego Cadena, Uribe’s attorney, offering him gifts to supposedly change his testimony.

This week Monsalve’s statement was made public before the Court and a sector of the Uribismo began to speak of a clear closeness with Senator Iván Cepeda (victim within the process) and of “familiarity” with Sandra Yepes. It is about the assistant magistrate who took the statement, who was from the team of magistrate José Luis Barceló and is now in the JEP.

(Also: This is the Court’s investigation of Álvaro Uribe for the El Aro massacre)

The statement is dated February 23, 2018, a day after Monsalve reported the harassment.

In addition to the speed of the Court to hear it, Uribistas have noted that the investigation was against an undetermined person, which made it possible to carry out proceedings behind the back of the defense. And they add that the Court has restricted jurisdiction and cannot carry out investigations without a name.

(You may be interested: Monsalve’s medical record, the ‘expara’ who unleashed the process against Uribe)

In any case, Cadena has already accepted that he offered Monsalve legal action and gave money (humanitarian aid) to another witness. That is why he is also charged, with house arrest. In addition, Monsalve admits that although he had Iván Cepeda aware of what was happening, it was he who looked for the senator.

Another point that the defense plans to exploit is what Uribe himself said: that Cepeda did not deliver the chats that he came across with that witness.

And EL TIEMPO revealed this Friday that the Uribista bench in the Senate sent a petition to Cepeda asking him to reveal his calls from the last 5 years to establish or rule out closeness with Monsalve and with Magistrate César Augusto Reyes, who is leading the investigation.

(Also: El Aro, the new fight between the Supreme Court and Uribe’s defense)

“I reserve the right to study if (…) they could be involved in an alleged illegal constraint,” Iván Cepeda replied, and insists that he gave chats, but not the memory of the cell phone, due to a technical failure due to a blow.

In addition, he denied being close to Magistrate Reyes. And about alleged prison privileges that, they say, he processed for Monsalve, he said that there is already a ruling in his favor in which his conduct was evaluated.

Reyes also denied any closeness or friendship with Cepeda or his wife, as the magistrate Cristina Lombana suggested.

(Also: Judge Lombana’s questions to her colleague César Reyes)

The defense is now expected to take action. And, on the side of the Court, that Uribe attend the free version –on September 15– within the El Aro file.

INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
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