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The alleged link between the representative to the Chamber Álvaro Hernán Prada and the witness against former President Uribe also changed his version of when he met the Huila politician.
After the Easter break, judicial activity in Colombia will resume with a crucial hearing on the most important file in recent years in Colombia. On April 6, the Prosecutor’s Office will ask that the investigation against Álvaro Uribe for alleged manipulation of witnesses be precluded, that is, that it end at that point, since the prosecutor Gabriel Jaimes considers that there is no merit to call him to trial. As zero hour approaches, El Espectador and Blu Radio continue to reveal the statements collected by the investigating body since, in September 2020, the file came into their hands after Uribe’s resignation from the Senate, which is why the Court Suprema lost jurisdiction over the case.
Also read: The evidence ordered by the prosecutor Gabriel Jaimes in the Uribe case
On the afternoon of January 29, 2021, in a virtual way, Carlos López Callejas, a man known as Caliche and that he is indicated by the Supreme Court of being one of the links who tried to pressure the witness Juan Guillermo Monsalve, who has said that former president Álvaro Uribe was the promoter of a paramilitary group in the nineties in northeastern Antioquia (the Metro block) . According to the high court investigation, Caliche It was one of the links that the representative to the Chamber of the Álvaro Hernán Prada Democratic Center used to try to change Monsalve’s testimony, an issue that also led the congressman to a process before the high court.
Caliche, who assured the Prosecutor’s Office that he is unemployed and that he was an informant for the Army, admitted that he lied to both Congressman Prada and witness Monsalve in the conversations he had with both in February 2018. The Court has said that Prada and Caliche crossed messages via WhatsApp at the time to get Monsalve to retract. Caliche says that he wanted to help the former president, because “he is the only one who has done something for the country and against the guerrillas,” and to judicially help his “friend” Monsalve, who has a 40-year prison sentence for the crimes of extortion kidnapping, illegal possession of weapons and conspiracy to commit a crime.
“I told Dr. Prada that it came from Monsalve, that was a lie that I told him. With a letter from him that they were going to give him a lawyer, I would show it to Monsalve and he would have given me the statement, “he said. Caliche to the Prosecutor’s Office. Next, the prosecutor asked him if, even if he was lying, he was willing to help Uribe, to which Caliche He responded evasively: “No, no, those lies that I put to Monsalve, is that I tell you, where Diego Cadena (Uribe’s lawyer) would not have gone to jail to speak with Monsalve, I would have achieved that video. I told Monsalve that the only alternative was to have a good lawyer put up for him ”.
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For one hour and 40 minutes, Caliche he did not indicate exactly where he was, as he is afraid to reveal his location and end up dead, “as other witnesses have appeared.” In addition, he told the Prosecutor’s Office that he received information that Monsalve, who is imprisoned in the La Picota prison in Bogotá for his links with organized crime, wanted to kill him. At various points in the sworn statement, he indicated that he reported this situation to the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor’s Office, and that the latter, he assured, recently told him that he was considered a person who “did not need any security (…) I have spent it from one place to another, moving so that they do not kill me ”.
Caliche said he also lied when he told Monsalve that Uribe’s lawyer, Jaime Granados, was going to review his case. “Everything I said to Monsalve de Granados was a lie (…) I have never lied to the Prosecutor’s Office or the Court, but I have lied to Monsalve, who is a bandit.” Another of the revelations of Caliche’s testimony before the Prosecutor’s Office is that he told him that he met Prada on February 20, 2018, while he was on a tour in the middle of his electoral campaign through a Neiva commune. Instead, he assured the high court that he met him approximately five years ago in La Plata, Huila, during political work.
Other news of the Uribe case: Uribe case: has Diego Cadena visited Juan Guillermo Monsalve 44 times since 2011?
“The representative Álvaro Hernán Prada does not even agree with Carlos Eduardo López Callejas about the moment they met, since he emphatically refers that he had never seen him before February 20, 2018, while he asserts, although with inconsistencies, that I did know him before, helping him in his political activity, that although Rodrigo Vidal Perdomo introduced him to him, that did not happen in the recent elections of March 2018, but approximately five years ago, in La Plata, Huila ”, it was recorded in page 332 of the lengthy order of the Supreme Court of August 2020, when the high court ordered the arrest of the former president.
Caliche also said that, although he never contacted Uribe Vélez, he wanted to give him information “to unmask Cepeda’s bandit (…) the information that Dr. Uribe should receive was about bribes, financial aid and the benefits he had, that Mr. Cepeda was giving him ”. The congressman from the Polo Democrático, who was accredited as a victim in this process against Uribe, has said that between 2013 and 2014 Monsalve’s family turned to him to point out that “he was being subjected to great pressure. I put the Monsalve family in contact with the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners, which is a human rights organization. They, using a fund that comes from Amnesty International, allocated some resources so that this family could leave the town where it was and come to Bogotá ”.
What have Prada and Monsalve said about “Caliche”?
Both Prada and Monsalve have said that Caliche lies. The witness Monsalve told the Court in November 2020 that “if I were to seek to retract or look for the former president (Álvaro) Uribe, I would have sent the letter (to the rancher) Juan Guillermo Villegas, it is that we have always been, like me He sent him to tell me, family, I’ve always been from there. So I didn’t need to look for (Congressman Álvaro Hernán Prada) or anyone else, I didn’t need to look for (Carlos López) Caliche, Caliche for me he is nobody ”. Juan Guillermo Villegas is another of those indicated by Monsalve as being the promoters of the paramilitary group in northeast Antioquia.
Prada has said that he delivered the messages he crossed with Caliche to the Supreme Court in order to prove his innocence. However, the Supreme Court reproached his defense for not providing technical information to guarantee that the chats had not been altered. The high court says the talks between Prada and Caliche would have started on February 20, 2018 and continued until July 26 of that year, and that they would be relevant, since it agrees with the period in which Uribe supposedly sought testimonies that would favor him and that he was later going to contribute to the Chamber of Instruction of the Supreme Court.
*This special report on the Uribe case was prepared by the judicial section of The viewer, made up of Diana Durán (judicial editor) and the reporters Felipe Morales, David Escobar, Alejandra Bonilla, Kelly Rodríguez and Sebastian Cote; and Santiago Martínez, journalist from the Investigative Unit. From Blue Radio there are the journalist Silvia Charry and Ricardo Ospina (director of Informative Services).
