The United States Department of Justice has told the Colombian judiciary that they will not cooperate with them in their investigation into disgraced former right wing President Alvaro Uribe. This is despite Colombia believing that the DOJ hold information about Uribe’s contact with paramilitaries and drug traffickers.
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Supreme Court magistrate Cesar Augusto Reyes requested that the DOJ hand over records they have about such calls and visits that Uribe held.
Reyes believes that the US could hold key information that would either corroborate or disprove central claims made by Uribes defense attorneys.
According to the magazine La Semana, Reyes has written letter to the DOJ condemning them as ‘disrespectful’ for refusing his “appropriate request.”
Among the charges he must answer to is that he paid for false testimonies to “politically finish off” left-wing lawmaker Ivan Cepeda, who had been exposing his links to paramilitarism. Congress threw out the case against Cepeda and pursued an inquiry into Uribe instead.
Another one of the serious charges he faces is that he bribed former paramilitaries huge amounts to testify that Uribe was not involved in the death squad known as ‘Bloque Metro’.
During Uribe’s time in power, he was a close ally of then president George Bush, and of US interests in the region.