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Never before has a judicial process against a former president advanced to the indictment. Never before has a former president been deprived of his liberty. Never before has a judicial process so divided public opinion. All of this happened in 2020.
The judicial process against former president Álvaro Uribe has had unexpected turns this year, filling him with uncertainty. On August 3, after two years of investigation, the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the ‘house for jail’ against Uribe, defining his legal situation and pointing out that apparently it was a determining factor of bribery and procedural fraud for trying, supposedly, manipulate three former paramilitaries to retract or dispute statements that linked him to the AUC.
(Also read: What comes in the case against Uribe after being charged with bribery?)
After the decision that kept him detained at his El Ubérrimo farm in Córdoba, he resigned from the Senate. The resignation led to the Court – which Uribe accused of not giving guarantees and even of acting in retaliation – lose the competence to continue investigating it and the case remains in the hands of the Prosecutor’s Office, taking a new turn. On the other hand, the decision to leave the Senate orphaned his party, the Democratic Center, in the capitol and opened the political bid for his successor.
Upon becoming head of the Attorney General’s Office, the head of that body, Francisco Barbosa, appointed the prosecutor Gabriel Jaimes to take charge of the process. Although Senator Iván Cepeda – considered a victim in this case – said that the two of them did not give guarantees of impartiality and he challenged them, the Supreme Court denied that request.
(In addition: Diego Cadena, lawyer for former President Uribe, will continue to be detained)
Uribe remained in detention until October 10, when a judge ordered his release. A month later, a new judge ratified that freedom, but considered that the investigation that the Court had made against Uribe could be compared to an accusation in the new system, which is why the case is now being handled by the Prosecutor’s Office and, therefore, therefore, Uribe was charged.
Since then the 120 days that the Prosecutor’s Office has to define whether to accuse him or close the investigation, which will be known next year.
Meanwhile, Uribe’s defense has insisted that the former president is innocent, that he never manipulated witnesses and that in front of people who said they wanted to tell the truth and retract the accusations against him, he only asked that they do so before the corresponding authorities. . He has also said that the task entrusted to the lawyer Diego Cadena – arrested for these events – was to verify the veracity of the testimonies and he has insisted that he never authorized the payments he made to witnesses.
Other judicial events that marked 2020Farc says it murdered Álvaro Gómez Hurtado
Álvaro Gómez Hurtado, assassinated in 1995, was a presidential candidate three times: 1974, 1986 and 1990.
After 25 years of the assassination of the conservative leader Álvaro Gómez Hurtado, in which the main hypothesis of the Prosecutor’s Office in this case – for which there was a convicted person – was that it was an assassination in which State agents and drug trafficking participated, a statement from the Farc party gave the case a 180 degree turn.
On October 3, members of that ex-guerrilla sent a letter to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) acknowledging responsibility in 6 homicides, including that of Gómez.
Gómez Hurtado’s family has said that they do not believe them and that politicians were involved behind the assassination and that the guerrillas are trying to protect those responsible. The ex-combatants have insisted on their version, ratified this Thursday before the JEP by Farc senator Julián Gallo.
(In context: What is known about the ex-FARC that they would have data on the crime of Álvaro Gómez)
Court signals attacks on social protest
Protesters beat their pans in the Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá.
Héctor Fabio Zamora / TIME
When reviewing a protection of several citizens, the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice established in September that in Colombia there is a systematic violation of the right to peaceful protest, in the face of Esmad abuses and police violence, arbitrary arrests of protesters, unjustified investigations against protesters, among others.
To make these claims, The Court reviewed several cases in which the rights of those who protested in last year’s national strike were affected.
In this ruling, the high court gave several orders to the Executive and different organizations, such as the Defender’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office, to protect the peaceful protest. The process was sent to the Constitutional Court on December 7, the high court that must decide whether or not to select it for review.
Arias manages to contest his ruling and opens paths
The former Minister of Agriculture Andrés Felipe Arias, detained in the North Canton for the case of Agro Ingreso Seguro, managed to get the Constitutional Court to accept a guardianship on May 21 and order the Supreme Court to allow him to challenge the ruling with which he was convicted only 17 years in prison, in 2014.
So far the Prosecutor’s Office, Procurator’s Office and Comptroller’s Office have asked the high court to uphold the sentence. Arias’ tutelage led to the Supreme Court itself allowing other convicts to challenge its rulings to guarantee equality.
In total, the Court agreed to review 84 challenges, of which 22 are from former senior officials involved in jacking, ‘parapolitics’, ‘Yidispolitics’, ‘narcopolitics’ or corruption, processes that will be on the public radar in 2021.
(On the subject: This is the Arias case, which opened the door to review by another 84 in Court)
Seven soldiers raped an embera girl
In front of the San Mateo de Pereira Battalion, women from the Embera indigenous community protested in various parts of the country in rejection of the rape of a girl by soldiers.
In June, in an event that outraged the country, at least 7 soldiers kidnapped and sexually abused a 12-year-old Embera Chamí minor in the Santa Cecilia district of Pueblo Rico (Risaralda). The soldiers accepted the charges brought by the Prosecutor’s Office, but have not yet been convicted.
On the other hand, the Attorney General’s Office sanctioned them in November with dismissal and general incapacity for 20 years, for what it considered were “true acts of barbarism carried out with constraint and threat to satisfy their sexual desires.” In addition, the Army reported that it has 118 internal investigations open against uniforms for sexual abuse of minors, and 59 have already been removed from service.
The controversial audios of the ‘Ñeñepolítica
In March, audios of a call between the late rancher José Guillermo ‘el Ñeñe’ Hernández and Claudia Daza, who was a member of former President Uribe’s UTL, were known, in which they spoke of alleged support for Iván Duque’s campaign. Daza left the UTL and was summoned for questioning at the Prosecutor’s Office.
Luigi Echeverry, campaign manager and Nubia Stella Martínez, director of the Democratic Center, also declared. So far the authorities have found no evidence of irregularities.
On the other hand, Yeferson Tocarruncho and Wadith Velásquez, the policemen who were part of the investigation that revealed the audios, were charged with allegedly illegally intercepting telephones in another case.
Massacre in La Modelo prison leaves 24 dead
The Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation against the directors of the prison.
Hector Fabián Zamora. TIME
On March 21, amid protests, at the La Modelo prison in Bogotá, 24 prisoners died violently. According to Legal Medicine, 23 of them died from bullets.
The Government maintained that the protests that triggered the deaths were part of an escape plan, while the Prosecutor’s Office spoke of a plan coordinated by ‘Romaña’, of the dissidents, to promote the mutiny.
But on December 4, the Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation against prison officials for alleged irregularities that could lead to these violent events. He said that days before the massacre there were alerts that this weekend could get complicated but, apparently, the precautions were not taken.
(We recommend: For the massacre in La Modelo, the Attorney General’s Office investigates executives)
The Army, targeted by outlining
In May, there were reports that some 130 journalists, politicians, NGOs, trade unionists and even a government official had been profiled by the Army, with folders that were kept in that institution in which information on their movements, contacts and other data was gathered. .
After the complaints, the Defense Ministry announced the withdrawal of 10 Army officers and a general, amid disciplinary proceedings.
In the same case, the Attorney General’s Office called 13 soldiers to trial in May, including retired generals Luis Felipe Montoya, former chief of the Operations Staff, and Gonzalo García, former intelligence chief, who requested their discharge in May for this case. The diligence has not yet been carried out.
Saab, from businessman to Maduro front man
Saab remains in detention in Cape Verde, Africa.
After being singled out by the United States as an alleged front man of the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro, businessman from Barranquilla Álex Saab was captured in June in Cape Verde (Africa). Since then, he has been detained in that country, from which the United States requested his extradition.
In the DEA dossier against Saab, former Senator Piedad Córdoba appears on the organization chart. Meanwhile, in Colombia the Attorney General’s Office accused Saab in September of money laundering, for allegedly making fictitious exports and evading taxes with his company Shatex SA Several of his assets have also been seized in the country, properties valued at more than 60,000 million pesos.
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