Medellin court orders Congress, Supreme Court to charge Uribe for paramilitary ties

Medellin court orders Congress, Supreme Court to charge Uribe for paramilitary ties
posted by Adriaan Alsema
Sep 6, 2013

The Supreme tribunal of Colombia’s second largest city Medellin said on Thursday that it will order Congress and the country’s Supreme Court to formally charge ex-President Alvaro Uribe for ties to paramilitary groups.

Magistrate Ruben Dario Pinilla of the court’s Penal Chamber said that testimonies given before the court by seven former members of paramilitary organization AUC, victims and witnesses provide enough merit for a formal accusation for “parapolitics,” or the use of paramilitary forces for political gain.

According to Pinilla, the testimonies corroborate the hypothesis that the controversial former president promoted and helped strengthen the paramilitary groups from when he was governor of the Antioquia department (1995-1997) until after he had assumed the presidency in 2002.

The magistrate said that the political support for the AUC, to whom tens of thousands of human rights violations are attributed, “became an established policy” under Uribe that was “sponsored, permitted and facilitated by the high command of the Armed Forces.”

More:
http://colombiareports.co/medellin-court-orders-congress-supreme-court-charge-uribe-paramilitary-ties/

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