As closest aides fall before justice, Uribe closer to prison than ever

[Judi Lynn]

As closest aides fall before justice, Uribe closer to prison than ever
Mar 2, 2015 posted by Adriaan Alsema

After the conviction of Colombia’s spy chief and the former presidential chief of staff, the investigations into what could be called Colombia’s Watergate have now reached the doorstep of former President Alvaro Uribe.

The former president has long been calling the wiretapping investigations part of a political persecution that is orchestrated by his successor, current President Juan Manuel Santos, and the Prosecutor General, Eduardo Montealegre.

However, this claim has weakened as more and more evidence has come to the public eye about a series of crimes carried out by members of the Uribe administration and his coalition in Congress.

Uribe’s tumbling house of cards

Of the multiple scandals that have discredited the former president, the DAS wiretapping scandal is closest to forcing the political death and even the incarceration of Uribe.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/as-closest-aides-fall-before-justice-uribe-closer-to-prison-than-ever/

[center]

George W. Bush awarding Alvaro Uribe with the Presidential Medal of Freedom

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[Judi Lynn]

1. Excerpt: "flagged by US intelligence as a close personal friend of drug lord Pablo Escobar" in 1991.

From the article:

Uribe’s legal troubles have been accumulating since he was briefly Mayor of Medellin in the early 1980s and flagged by US intelligence as a close personal friend of drug lord Pablo Escobar.

In the 1990s, when Uribe became governor of his home Antioquia state, he usted a brief period in which self-defense groups were legal to sign off on the creation on a number of self-defense groups that later became members groups of the illegal paramilitary organization AUC.

This vicinity to the creation of the AUC recently became another legal issue for Uribe when a court ordered a criminal investigation to determine whether Uribe was complicit in a 1997 paramilitary massacre.

Was Uribe complicit in a 1997 paramilitary massacre?

More than 45 congressmen — the vast majority of whom were part of the majority coalition supporting Uribe’s two administrations between 2002 and 2010 –were sentenced to prison for ties to these paramilitary groups. One of the convicted Congressman was Uribe’s own cousin, Mario Uribe.

Uribe’s brother Santiago is investigated for allegedly founding and leading a paramilitary group that ended up killing leftist activist or politicians.

As if that isn’t enough, Uribe saw two of his former intelligence chief convicted for crimes, one for ties to the AUC and the second, Hurtado, for spying of opponents of Uribe.

Two of Uribe’s hand-picked personal security chiefs are currently serving time in the United States for their ties to the paramilitaries.

Uribe’s former agricultural minister was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the embezzling of millions of dollars from funds reserved to support poor farmers.

Two former ministers are still facing trial in Colombia for the 2004 bribery of Congressmen to vote in favor of a constitutional reform that in 2006 allowed Uribe’s reelection.

The peace commissioner of the Uribe administrations is hiding in Canada after he was charged with faking the demobilization of a fictitious FARC unit only days before the same 2006 elections.

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
From a U.S. Declassified report:

[center]U.S. INTELLIGENCE LISTED COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT URIBE AMONG
"IMPORTANT COLOMBIAN NARCO-TRAFFICKERS" IN 1991

Then-Senator "Dedicated to Collaboration with the Medellín Cartel at High Government Levels"[/center]
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/index.htm

[forest444]

2. The perfect fit for Bushies and neocons.

No wonder he gets such good press in the business rags!

[Judi Lynn]

3. So true! He threw open the door to all exploiters and abusers of the poor, the helpless,

fauna, flora, water, and earth. Only the wealthy survive in his ideal world, with just enough human beings to do all their work for them, and only if they do it for free, and are willing to live in squalor and pain, and suffering.

They're the kind of people right-wingers dream of in their deep troll sleep.