Prosecutor seeks indictment of Uribe government’s legal secretary and journalist

July 1, 2021 – 9:53 am. M.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office has asked the 56th criminal judge who knows Bogota to convict the former presidential press secretary, Cesar Mauricio Velasquez and the former legal secretary, Edmundo del Castillo, accused of an alleged plot to discredit the Supreme Court in 2007. The facts by those being investigated date back to The presidency of Alvaro Uribe Velez, when there were clashes between the CEO and the Supreme Court over foreign policy investigations.

Omar Bernal, the prosecutor in the case, is the one who made the request and confirmed that the evidence shows an intent to commit illegal acts to discredit the judges of the court. According to him, there was an alliance between the former officials of Alvaro Uribe’s government, the dissolved Administrative Security Administration (DAS) and the Financial Information and Analysis Unit (UIAF).

The case against former officials of Uribe’s government occurred because, apparently, in 2008, during Alvaro Uribe’s second term, they had formed a conspiracy against the then-assistant justice of the peace of the Supreme Court, Ivan Velázquez. This is the official who coordinated policy investigations in the Supreme Court.

In the case, paramilitary copy Jose Orlando Moncada, alias Tasmania, who said in a letter that he was receiving pressure from former investigative judge Velasquez to testify against Uribe. In the end, it was discovered that it was a lie and Monacada’s attorney was found guilty of the events. Likewise, he learned that a few days before the letter appeared, Pedro Antonio López Jiménez, a paramilitary, known as Profession And the right hand Don Berna, He was at Nariño’s house visiting del Castillo and former secretary Velázquez.

During the hearing, the public prosecutor said that “the judge is required to issue a verdict of convicting citizens, Cesar Mauricio Velasquez Osa, who served as press secretary to the Presidency of the Republic.” With reference to del Castillo, he requested “a conviction against Edmundo del Castillo Restrepo, former legal secretary of the Council of Nariño, in the framework of the investigation which can now and with great appropriateness describe the criminal convention for delegitimizing the Supreme Court of Justice”.

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The Public Prosecutor also confirmed that the defendants had committed the crime of conspiracy to commit a crime. Among the evidence he gave was the testimony of former paramilitary Salvatore Mancuso, who made a statement in 2016 in which he asserted that government officials in Uribe had contacted him for alleged evidence of confrontations between a former judge and Giorgio Seal, known as “The Booty Man”.

Additionally, in that statement, Mancuso said that behind the alleged plan against the court, there was an alliance between Envigado’s office, Presidency officials, and DAS. According to him, the goal was to be able to create an ad hoc court, which would affect that court.

Among those who made their statement was Bernardo Moreno, former Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic in the Uribe government.

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On the other hand, within the process, Edmundo del Castillo himself declared, who said that after more than 10 years of investigations he was the victim of a conspiracy, because the recordings made with the teams of DAS judges were prior to his accession to the presidency and no one told him about these actions. Similarly, he confirmed that it was the lawyer who requested a meeting in Casa de Nariño, in which the demobilized pseudonym was involved. Profession, supposed to provide evidence of a plan to damage the image of former President Alvaro Uribe Velez, and link him to paramilitary groups.

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