Álvaro Uribe: Court tells the Prosecutor’s Office that he can access Monsalve’s cell phone and computer – Cortes – Justicia

Five days after the Prosecutor’s Office resolves the future of Alvaro Uribe Velez, investigated for bribery of witnesses and procedural fraud, the ex-president said about noon on Tuesday that according to his lawyers, the Supreme Court of Justice had not given the Prosecutor’s Office a cell phone that had been seized from Juan Guillermo Monsalve, the main witness against the former president.

However, six hours later, in a new trill, Uribe assured that the investigators had informed him that the magistrate César Augusto Reyes Medina, who was in charge of his proceedings when he was in the Supreme Court of Justice, had already made the telephone number that Inpec seized from Monsalve at the disposal of the Prosecutor’s Office. (Also read: Prosecutor’s Office tells a witness in the Uribe case that his duty is to testify).

TIME knew that since last February 25, the Investigation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice He responded to the Prosecutor’s Office a request that the accusing body had made to allow him access to the computer and telephone that were seized last year from former paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve, who is imprisoned in La Picota.

According to the file, Monsalve had allegedly been pressured by Uribe’s lawyer, Diego Cadena, to retract the accusations in which he has linked the former president with the formation of paramilitarism in Antioquia, facts of which Uribe has always declared himself innocent.

As the General Prosecutor’s Office, headed by the delegate prosecutor Gabriel Jaimes, must define whether or not to accuse Uribe of these events, on February 22 the accusing body sent an email to the Court in which he indicated that by order of the police A judicial inspection had to be carried out in order to obtain some evidence and take it to the evidence warehouse of the Attorney General’s Office.

These are judicial inspections of a blue Samsung A30 cell phone, without a sim card, and a black HP ProBook computer, all of them seized from Monsalve in prison when the case was in the hands of the Court. Those items were seized on January 4 of last year, after Uribe’s defense made a request to the high court to carry out a search and control operation in Monsalve’s cell.

(Also read: Diego Cadena, lawyer for former President Uribe, will continue to be detained).

Three days later, in an order of February 25, Magistrate Reyes Medina allowed the Prosecutor’s Office to carry out said judicial inspection of the computer and the telephone, in order to carry out the technical activities and the tests that it considers pertinent in the process that advances against former senator Uribe. However, he made it clear that although he can access this evidence whenever he wants, he cannot take it with him.

(Also read: Court denies the tutelage with which Uribe sought to overturn his accusation).

The Court told the Prosecutor’s Office that once that corporation lost competence to continue investigating Uribe, after he resigned from the Senate and lost his jurisdiction, that high court sent him a copy of the extraction of the information from the computer and the cell phone. to the accusing body, along with all the evidence and files in the voluminous file.

“Within the process (of Uribe) carried out by the coordinating Prosecutor delegated to the Supreme Court of Justice Gabriel Jaimes Durán, the evidence that he requires is already in place, because as already indicated, as a result of the breakdown of the procedural unit generated in this matter, sent a full copy of the action to the office of the Attorney General of the Nation, “said the Supreme Court.

However, the Court assures that in this case the high court continues to investigate these same facts at representative of the Álvaro Hernán Prada Democratic Center. As the corporation continues to be competent to investigate Prada, it told the prosecuting body that it cannot make final delivery of the computer and cell phone since they are evidence under the chain of custody of the Supreme Court of Justice.

“The duty of assurance of the evidence that assists the judicial officer is contemplated in the adjective law, in order to adopt all the necessary measures to prevent the material evidence from being altered, hidden or destroyed,” the Court told the prosecution.

In other words, the Court told the Prosecutor’s Office that you can go to the offices of the Investigation Room at any time to access your computer and cell phone, and that you have them at your disposal whenever you like to extract the information you need from there. but they cannot be delivered because they are evidence that is part of the process that the Court is taking against Prada, and that they are in his custody.

“If for any circumstance that is not even minimally adduced in the request, it is considered that the investigators of the CTI of the Prosecutor’s Office under orders of the coordinating Prosecutor must repeat the procedure advanced by the Court, the required elements will be made available to the commissioned investigators , at the premises of the Chamber, to carry out the required inspection and even appear with the expert experts to extract the information again, “said the Court.

(Also read: Precautionary measures for ‘La veranera’, estate of expara Monsalve).

Thus, the Court tells the prosecuting body that “in no way” can they be handed over to be subjected to the chain of custody of the Prosecutor’s Office in its General Evidence Store.

The corporation told the Prosecutor’s Office that although it is true that it must receive the support and collaboration of the other authorities in its investigations, “under the pretext of securing the material evidence that it claims to require, it cannot incur a sort of seizure of the elements legally seized by another judicial official and that of course are part of the probative material and physical evidence of a current criminal process “.

The Court assures that it is the duty of the judicial official in charge of an investigation – in this case of Magistrate Reyes – to protect the evidence that he legally collected, “guaranteeing both its authenticity and its safety”, in order to be able to make decisions corresponding judicial

Thus, he tells the Prosecutor’s Office that he can access the computer and telephone, but under the terms and conditions that he stated.

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