:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/JFYPHBPJ3FECLGNB34LXUXKRSU.jpg "The last phase began to seek the estoppel of the process against former President Uribe for the purchase of witnesses")
On Tuesday, March 7, the final phase of the foreclosure hearing began in favor of the former president. Alvaro Uribe Velezprosecuted for alleged witness tampering against the senator Ivan Cepeda.
Jaime Granados, defense lawyer, spoke at the said hearing, which presented the arguments in support of the request, presented by the Attorney General’s office, for the estoppel of the process.
The legal proceedings were conducted before Judge 41 of the Criminal Circuit with knowledge function. One of the objectives of the lawyer for the former senator and leader of the Democratic Center was to distort the versions which would have indicated that Diego Cadena, on behalf of the former senator, proposed the payment of bribes or the offer of advantages to witnesses such as Juan Guillermo Monsalve so that they testify against Cepeda.
Since the start of the hearing Jaime Granados attempted to prove his client’s innocence. In this sense, the lawyer maintained that there is no conclusive evidence that Uribe Vélez gave the order to pressure the witnesses or give them advantages to change their version.
Likewise, he argued that the evidence presented during the process of the case “points to the fact that Alvaro Uribe Velez The only thing he did was to look for a way to corroborate the information he had received about the existence of a group of paramilitaries who wanted to withdraw the charges they had brought in different judicial contexts against him and his brother, breeder Santiago Uribe Vélez. ”
And now Jaime Granados a point:
“In this case, it is obvious that the private prosecutors who act as alleged victims have resorted to the method of stigmatizing the citizen under investigation, as they clearly and eloquently call it: the accused, presenting him as guilty of the most horrific crimes,” the former president’s lawyer said.
On March 16, it will be the turn to talk about Alvaro Uribe Velez. With this hearing, the stage of listening to all the procedural subjects will end and the 41st judge of Bogotá will be preparing to render a substantive decision on this case, one of the most publicized against the former president.
However, in the diligence of Tuesday, March 7, Jaime Granados He pointed out that the alleged victims such as Iván Cepeda, former prosecutor Eduardo Montealegre, Juan Guillermo Monsalve and Deyanira Gómez brought unfounded accusations against the former president.
“And not satisfied with that, they brought into the debate an alleged criminal magna with the added effect of ending up seeking to caricature the character of Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s story, it is, your honor, a malevolent resource for undermine the adversary’s policy during the process”, affirmed Jaime Granados.
But the witness most criticized for Jaime Granados it was Monsalve. For the lawyer of the former head of state, “there is no evidence linking him to paramilitary groups in Antioquia, which is why any version he gave of the events he witnessed within this illegal armed group must be challenged”. ”.
Note that on February 24 the Attorney General’s Office He asked the 41st Knowledge Judge of Bogotá to endorse the request of the General Prosecutor’s Office to archive the investigation in favor of Alvaro Uribe Velez. Lawyer Esiquio Sánchez assured that all the conditions were met for the estoppel to be issued.
In turn, the head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office said that the testimonies and supporting documents show that “the former president only asked his lawyers to confirm an investigation that had reached him about a group of people deprived of their liberty who wanted to withdraw the allegations that they had made against him and his brother, rancher Santiago Uribe Vélez, of having links with paramilitary groups in the department of Antioquia.