Supreme Court refers Uribe’s inquiry to the Prosecutor’s Office for alleged links with massacres

The Supreme Court of Justice sent this Tuesday to the Prosecutor’s Office the preliminary investigation against former President Álvaro Uribe for his alleged links with three massacres perpetrated in Antioquia and for the murder of a Human Rights defender.

The high court indicated that it lost competence in these cases when the former president resigned his seat in the Senate, and for that reason he was left without a congressional jurisdiction and his actions become the competence of ordinary justice.

“This decision was adopted unanimously because the Special Investigation Chamber did not find the requirements indicated (…) in the Political Constitution to continue hearing this matter, hence, by jurisdiction, it refers it to the attorney general.”, indicates the Court in a statement.

One of the cases referred is the investigation into the El Aro massacre, Perpetrated by paramilitaries between October 22 and 31, 1997 in that hamlet in the municipality of Ituango, in the department of Antioquia.

Uribe has been linked to that massacre for allegedly having supported during his term as governor of that department (1995-1997) the paramilitaries who murdered 17 peasants.

The process against the former president preliminarily investigates his alleged involvement in the massacre due to the fact that several witnesses claimed to have seen a helicopter from the Antioquia Government that carried out surveillance while the paramilitaries carried out the massacre.

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According to the Court, “In the same context, other crimes occurred, such as the kidnapping of 17 people, the burning of most of the houses, the theft of cattle and the forced displacement of a significant number of Ituango residents”.

The El Aro massacre, like others to which Uribe has been linked, such as the La Granja massacre, which occurred on June 11, 1996, which left five dead, It was declared a crime against humanity so it does not have a prescription.

The process involving Uribe also investigates the alleged formation, promotion or financing in the mid-1990s by an armed organization outside the law.

That apparently he used Hacienda Guacharacas as a base of operations, located between the municipalities of Yolombó and San Roque (Antioquia), owned by the family of the former president at that time.

According to the file, the armed group committed attacks against the civil population of the municipality of San Roque, among them the massacres of July 13 and September 17, 1996.

The Court also referred the investigation into the murder of Jesús María Valle to the Prosecutor’s Office, Human Rights defense lawyer in one of the hardest stages of violence of the armed conflict.

Who chaired the Permanent Committee on Human Rights of Antioquia, despite having received several death threats against him.

The lawyer was assassinated on February 27, 1998 in Medellín by hitmen from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) after denouncing the inaction of the authorities to prevent the massacres of La Granja and El Aro, perpetrated by the same paramilitaries.

In early February 2018, a court in Medellín requested that former president Álvaro Uribe be investigated for his relationship with the murder of Valle.

Since the meeting to arrange his murder supposedly took place on a farm owned by the former president’s family, according to the court.