Colombia’s Supreme Court to investigate Uribe over 1997 massacre

Source: Colombia Reports

Colombia’s Supreme Court to investigate Uribe over 1997 massacre
Posted by Emma Rosser on Oct 6, 2015

Pressure on former President Alvaro Uribe increased to unprecedented levels after the prosecution ordered to open a criminal investigation into the former Colombian head of state’s alleged complicity in a 1997 paramilitary massacre. Statements from one of Colombia’s most infamous drug traffickers, former-paramilitary commander “Don Berna” given in front of a committee of the prosecution alleged that the current senator had direct knowledge of the slaughter that took place in 1997.

In February of this year a Medellin court already ordered the investigation of Uribe for his alleged involvement in the massacre that has haunted the former head of state for decades, in spite of a diminishing number of key witnesses, lost through extraditions and assassinations.

The then governor of Antioquia Uribe allegedly had knowledge of the slaughter, almost two decades ago, when members of paramilitary group AUC murdered 14 in El Aro, a village in the northwestern department, that was burnt to the ground.

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The brother of the former president is also currently on trial for founding his own paramilitary group, “the 12 Apostles” that sought to violently remove leftist elements from Antioquia politics in the 1980s.



Read more: http://colombiareports.com/supreme-court-to-investigate-uribe-over-1997-massacre/