Powerful former President Alvaro Uribe appeared before Colombia's Supreme Court on Tuesday for questioning in a case involving alleged witness tampering that could potentially cast a dark shadow over is legacy.
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A magistrate queried Uribe behind closed doors for over seven hours about accusations that, through a lawyer, he tried to influence and even bribe members of a paramilitary group who had damaging information against him.
The case stems from allegations raised by Sen. Ivan Cepeda, who claims he has firsthand witness accounts that Uribe was a founding leader of a paramilitary group in his home province during the decades-long civil conflict involving government, leftist rebels and right-wing bands.
The ex-chief of state has denied all accusations of ties to the paramilitaries, who are accused of drug trafficking, killing innocents and driving thousands from their homes or lands while fighting rebels.
The case has divided the South American nation and set off demonstrations both in favor of and against the ex-president. Political analysts are also watching it as an important test for Colombia's justice system, which throughout its history has struggled to hold prominent political and military leaders accountable.
"It's crucial that Colombia's justice system handles this with professional, dispassionate rigor so that it doesn't devolve into a circus," said Adam Isacson, a Colombia expert with the Washington Office on Latin American think tank.
Perhaps no political leader in Colombia's recent history has wielded as much influence as Uribe, who still boasts legions of followers. He successfully led the campaign to reject a referendum approving Colombia's peace process with leftist rebels in 2016. Last year, his support lifted a little-known senator, Ivan Duque, to the presidency.
But allegations of ties to drug cartels and paramilitaries have dogged Uribe since the early 1980s, when the civil aviation agency he led was accused of giving air licenses to drug traffickers. Declassified State Department cables from a decade later show U.S. officials were told the up-and-coming politician had ties to cartels.
Uribe has persistently denied those charges and was an unwavering U.S. ally in the war on drugs during his 2002-2010 presidency. He extradited a record number of suspected drug traffickers to the U.S. and aggressively expanded a U.S. program to aerially spray wide swaths of illegal coca crops with chemical herbicide.
"I never thought my defense of honor and love for Colombia, with respect for citizens and in accordance with the Constitution, would create legal problems for me," Uribe said Monday.
His court appearance stems from allegations Cepeda made in 2014 during a debate in Congress over Uribe's alleged paramilitary ties. Cepeda claimed he had accounts from two ex-combatants confirming the association.
Uribe in turn accused Cepeda of slander, but the Supreme Court later dismissed the case, instead opening an investigation into the ex-president.
The case hinges largely on statements by former paramilitary fighter Juan Guillermo Monsalve, who claims Uribe helped form a branch of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, an umbrella paramilitary group known by its Spanish acronym, AUC.
Monsalve alleges that a lawyer for Uribe, Diego Cadena, pressured him to retract his statement. A second ex-paramilitary has also alleged that Cadena also paid him to testify in favor of the former president.
The Supreme Court will have to weigh whether there is sufficient evidence tying Uribe to actions Cadena may have conducted as his attorney to justify charges against the ex-chief of state.
The magistrates will also have to weigh the credibility of witnesses with checkered pasts who have at times changed their stories.
Many Colombians are either devout Uribe loyalists who praise his iron-fisted approach to defeating leftist rebels while president or skeptics who have long wanted to see the former leader in court.
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