Ex-Colombian president Álvaro Uribe found guilty of witness-tampering
Álvaro Uibe became the first former former former President of Colombia who was convicted of crime.
A court in Bogotá found a 73-year-old child, who was president between 2002 and 2010, was found guilty for a witness map and fraud.
He was sentenced to bribery to witnesses in a separate investigation into the allegations that he had ties with the right -wing paramilitters, responsible for human rights violations.
Each accusation is sentenced to imprisonment of up to 12 years. Uibe is always expected to appeal the decision that preserves its innocence.
During his term of office, Uibe is known to assemble an aggressive attack against the leftist guerrilla group against the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC). He always rejected relations with the right -wing paramilitters.
AFP, seeing more than 90 witnesses testified at the hearing, the former President reported that the decision shook his head when the decision was read.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the court’s decision, accusing the country’s judiciary of armament.
The former president was to fight the only crime without getting tired and defending it with his homeland “, on the social media site X.
The result comes more than ten years after Uibe was first accused in 2012.
At that time, a left -wing senator accused Ivan Cepeda for a conspiracy against him. Uibe claimed that Cepeda wanted to misrepresent the right -wing paramilitary groups in the internal armed conflict of Colombia.
However, the country’s Supreme Court rejected the former president’s allegations against CEPEDA, and instead investigated Uibe for bonds.
The former president was accused of bribing to contact the old fighters who were imprisoned later and to reject connections with paramilitary groups – dealing with lock witnesses.
Uibe said he wanted to convince the old fighters to tell the truth.
Paramilitary groups emerged in the 1980s with the goal of poverty and marginalization in Colombia. Twenty years ago, they fought the Marxist -inspired guerrilla groups who fought the state.
Most of the armed groups developed in congestion earned revenue from cocaine trade. Among them and the state with violence and fatal fighting, human trafficking routes and resources have produced permanent competitions.
Uibe was praised by Washington for his harsh approach to FARC rebels-but he was a separatist politician who said he did little to improve the inequality and poverty in the country.
In 2016, FARC signed a peace agreement with the successor of Uibe, but violence from unarmed groups continues in Colombia.
