International
The Colombian Prosecutor’s Office formally accuses former President Álvaro Uribe of three crimes
The Colombian Prosecutor’s Office accused Álvaro Uribe before a judge this Friday for the crimes of bribery, procedural fraud and bribery in criminal proceedings, so the former president becomes accused in the case of alleged bribery of witnesses and procedural fraud.
It is the first time that the Prosecutor’s Office has filed charges against Uribe (2002-2010), which were accepted by Judge 44 of criminal knowledge of Bogotá, Sandra Liliana Heredia, who ruled that “from this moment (the former president) acquires the status of accused.”
According to the judge’s decision, the process against Uribe begins formally and if guilty the head of the Democratic Center can be sentenced to between 6 and 12 years in prison.
The accusation comes after the togada denied the request for the nullity of the process against the former president by considering it “absolutely inappropriate,” so “its rejection is imposed flatly, a decision against which no appeal is appropriate.”
Likewise, the judge accepted as victims of the case Senator Iván Cepeda and former attorneys general Jorge Perdomo and Eduardo Montealegre, as well as Deyanira Gómez, former wife of paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve, involved in the case.
These two decisions were celebrated by Cepeda’s lawyer, Reinaldo Villalba, who assured that “they are decisions that recognize not only the condition of the victims but the need for the victims to have access to justice and there defend and claim their rights.”
The prosecutor who leads the case, Gilberto Villarreal, accused Uribe as “determinator of the successive homogeneous contest of three bribery crimes in criminal proceedings” because for “the benefit of himself or a third party he gives or promises a utility to a person who witnessed a criminal act to refrain from running to testify or to totally or partially miss the truth.”
He also accused him of “sucessive homogeneous contest of two courts of procedural fraud,” that is, because “by any fraudulent means it misleads a public servant to obtain a sentence, resolution or administrative act contrary to the law.”
Also as a “determinator of the crime of bribery” because he delivered or promised “money or other utility to a witness so that he totally or partially lacks the truth or the street in his testimony.”
This case dates back to 2012 when Uribe, who was a senator, sued Cepeda for alleged manipulation of witnesses, who at that time was preparing a complaint in Congress against him for alleged links with paramilitarism.
Contrary to what was expected by Uribe, the Supreme Court of Justice did not open an investigation against the left-wing congressman and, instead, initiated a trial against Uribe for manipulation of witnesses.
The accusation of bribery has to do with the alleged payment of bribes to Carlos Enrique Vélez and Juan Guillermo Monsalve, who are imprisoned in the prisons of Palmira, and La Picota in Bogotá, respectively.
Monsalve, a former paramilitary, assured that there was a whole strategy to approach him and convince him to testify against Cepeda.
Uribe has been saying for years that it is a case against him that has political motives and that lacks evidence.
Uribe resigned his senator’s seat in August 2020 to stop being assigned and that his case was passed to ordinary justice and then the Prosecutor’s Office decided that there was no evidence to prosecute him judicially.
That is why he requested up to two occasions the preclusion of the case, which was denied both by the courts of first instance presented and by the High Court of Bogotá.
However, prosecutor Villarreal took over the case on January 16 and on April 9 he affirmed that based on the physical evidence and evidence he determined that there were reasons to accuse Uribe, which were the conclusions of the judges when denying the pre-preclusion.
International
Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.
“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.
“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.
Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.
International
Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links
A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.
Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.
However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.
International
Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”
The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.
“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.
The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.
His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”
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