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On January 15, the defense of former President Álvaro Uribe filed a tutela to overturn the decision that he was formally charged with the crimes of bribery and procedural fraud. to the doors As long as it is known whether he will be called to trial or not, the leader of the Democratic Center withdrew from the judicial appeal.
Former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez asked the Supreme Court of Justice to no longer follow the study of a guardianship that he presented, together with his team of lawyers, with the initial intention of overthrowing the decision of a Bogotá judge who considered that the former senator today he is formally charged with the crimes of bribery and procedural fraud. The viewer established that the Criminal Chamber of the high court accepted said withdrawal and, therefore, will not change the status that Uribe Vélez has at this time, who is on the verge of knowing if he is called to trial or not by the Attorney General’s Office.
(In context: Former President Uribe will remain free, but he is formally investigated)
“The plaintiff Álvaro Uribe Vélez and his attorney Jaime Enrique Granados Peña by means of a letter of March 2, 2021, reiterated their claim to withdraw from the appeal filed against the judgment of guardianship of January 26, 2021, indicating that such withdrawal was not conditioned to the demonstration of any particular circumstance. In view of the foregoing and added to the absence of any defect of consent in its manifestation, the claim will be granted, “said the Criminal Chamber in a nine-page document.
Specifically, the former president presented a protection against a decision that in November 2020 was taken by the Fourth Criminal Court of the Circuit with Knowledge Functions of Bogotá, declaring him formally imputed, by equating the investigation diligence that he rendered before the Supreme Court of Justice in August 2019, to the hearing for the imputation of charges that is held in the accusatory criminal system, after the former president resigned from Congress and with that, his case passed from the Court to the Prosecutor’s Office.
The guardianship had been initially denied by the Superior Court of Bogotá, which on January 26 indicated that the process is ongoing and, therefore, there were other suitable means of judicial defense to claim the protection of the rights to due process. and defense. Through a statement, attorney Jaime Granados, Uribe Vélez’s defender, explained during those days that the Supreme Court of Justice could review a procedure in which “the fundamental rights of the citizen were violated.”
Also read: 1,290 people and organizations demand “no impunity” from the Prosecutor’s Office in the Uribe case.
On February 1, Uribe Vélez’s defense formally challenged the decision of the Superior Court of Bogotá, reaffirming that the tutela action was the ideal judicial means to revoke that decision that declared him a defendant and protect his rights, allegedly affected. Likewise, the lawyer Jaime Granados explained that he was not going to leave the guarantees of his client in the hands of a third party, the Prosecutor’s Office, which among its options has to request estoppel, present the indictment or, also, reach a preliminary agreement that benefits to the investigated and the investigating body.
During the process, the prosecutor Gabriel Jaimes adhered to the requests of Uribe’s defense and, in an eight-page document, warned that approving the investigation of the Supreme Court and the accusation of the ordinary justice would seriously affect the right to defense and due process of the ex-president. “It is necessary to remedy this situation promptly, therefore we expressly request access to the terms of the tutela action presented (by Uribe’s defense),” the prosecutor sent to the Superior Court of Bogotá.
Background: Prosecutor’s Office asks to agree with Uribe’s defense and that his process start from scratch
Meanwhile, Polo Senator Iván Cépeda, who is the victim in the investigation, came into contradiction with both Uribe’s defense and Gabriel Jaimes’s prosecutor’s office. His defender, Reynaldo Villalba, explained that the tutela action was not the ideal mechanism to bring down those ordered by the Fourth Circuit Court with Knowledge Functions of Bogotá. Even the lawyer assured that there is no irreparable damage for which Uribe Vélez should claim protection.
“Nor was there any replacement of the role of the Prosecutor’s Office, as the plaintiff (Uribe’s defense) wants to show. Moreover, the person who provoked the intervention of the judges of the Republic, alleging the dissimilarity between the investigation and the accusation, was the very defense of the defendant, who precisely wanted the judges to define such a situation, ”reads a part of the document published by the lawyer Reynaldo Villalba.
Finally, Cepeda’s defense argued that returning the Uribe case to zero, as he was seeking protection, would destabilize the criminal process and would mean a step towards impunity, since the matter was already judicially defined, not counting the resources that the justice has invested to investigate this entire file. And, in addition, Villalba maintained that it was Álvaro Uribe himself, with his resignation from Congress, who achieved an unprecedented procedural scenario to land in the Prosecutor’s Office.
