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The lawyers of former President Uribe announced that they will challenge the ruling of the Bogotá Court that declared inadmissible the protection with which they asked, in short, that their client lose the status of defendant and the process against him would have to be started again by the Prosecutor’s Office.
After the Criminal Chamber of the Bogotá Court denied it as inadmissible, the defense of former President Álvaro Uribe announced that he will bring before the Supreme Court of Justice the protection with which they seek to return the process against him for alleged manipulation of witnesses to zero . “An appeal will be filed with which the Supreme Court of Justice will seek to review the procedural conflict, with which, undoubtedly, the fundamental rights of the citizen (Uribe) have been violated,” said the former senator’s lawyers in a statement.
(In context: Álvaro Uribe: they declare inadmissible guardianship who sought to return his process to zero)
In the guardianship, Uribe Vélez sought to overturn the decision of the 4th criminal judge of Bogotá, who last November equated the investigation that the former president gave in Court with an indictment. The Prosecutor’s Office, in the process of guardianship, also agreed with Uribe and asked to return the process, practically, to its beginnings, “in order to avoid, in the future, among other things, a certain nullity that would frustrate the material justice desired by all parties and intervening parties, ”as the prosecutor in the case, Gabriel Jaimes, wrote in a statement sent to the Bogotá Court.
In the statement issued this Thursday by the defense of the former president, they wrote that, with the challenge before the Supreme Court, “it is expected to reestablish the violations of due process and a right of defense, compared to the interpretation applied by a judge in relation to a conflict between two different procedural laws ”. And, in turn, they claimed precisely that their arguments “were shared by the Attorney General’s Office and by the head of the criminal action, the Attorney General’s Office,” but not by the Bogotá Court.
(You may be interested: Jaime Granados filed a tutela against the judge who decided that Uribe is already charged)
The legal mess has its origin in the resignation of Uribe Vélez to the Senate: when this happened, the process against him had to leave the Investigation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice – which investigates only congressmen and senior officials – and pass to the Prosecutor’s Office. The defense of the former president requested his release and, in the same hearing, Judge 30 of guarantees of Bogotá decided that the applicable procedural system had to be adjusted, but that the investigation that Uribe gave in the Court was not comparable to an imputation, with which that the process returned to zeros.
However, the Polo senator, Iván Cepeda, opposed the freedom and that Uribe lost the status of defendant, with which the matter fell, in second instance, in the office of the fourth criminal judge of Bogotá. “The Prosecutor’s Office should not make the accusation, this stage has already been passed, therefore, it must issue whether to file an accusation or desist from continuing to investigate,” the judge said last November. However, before the prosecutor in the case made a decision, Uribe’s defense filed this protection.
(Also read: Prosecutor’s Office asks to agree with Uribe’s defense and that his process start all over again)
The Bogotá Court declared the appeal inadmissible for four reasons: “(i) the criminal action in question is ongoing, (ii) within it there are suitable and expeditious means of judicial defense to claim the protection of the rights to due process and defense, (iii) which have not been exercised and (iv) in this case the claimed analysis cannot be carried out, as it would imply an unjustified interference in the sphere of competence of ordinary justice ”. Now the Uribe case, as announced by his defense, will return to the Supreme Court to define a central question: whether or not the Prosecutor’s Office should start the prosecution from zero.
