Judge orders ex-Colombian president freed from house arrest
Colombia's powerful ex-President Álvaro Uribe has been ordered freed from house arrest while he is investigated for possible witness tampering
11 October 2020, 04:01
5 min read
The Associated Press
FILE - In this Aug. 7, 2018 file photo, Colombia's former President and Senator Alvaro Uribe arriv...Read More
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Powerful ex-Colombia President Álvaro Uribe was ordered freed from house arrest Saturday while he is investigated for possible witness tampering, the latest chapter in a case that has revealed lingering tensions over the country's peace process.
The nation's Supreme Court had ordered Uribe detained in August during the probe, shocking Colombians and unleashing protests in favor and against the decision. He was the first president in Colombia’s recent history to be ordered placed on house arrest.
But municipal Judge Clara Salcedo ruled Saturday during a virtual hearing that the prior ruling could not be upheld under a new legal framework under which Uribe is being investigated since resigning his Senate seat after his detention.
“Thank God,” Uribe wrote on Twitter as the decision was read.
The decision can be appealed but Uribe was immediately ordered released.
The Supreme Court argued in its 1,554-page decision in August that there was ample evidence to show Uribe had engaged in trying to pressure former paramilitaries into retracting damaging statements against the ex-president. But the high court later relinquished control of the case when Uribe resigned his Senate seat, handing it to the chief prosecutor’s office.
Magistrates have since ruled that Uribe should be tried under a different legal framework designed for ordinary citizens, paving the way for his release.
The former president’s lawyer argued that because Uribe is only under investigation and has not been charged he should be freed. Prosecutor Gabriel Ramon Jaimes agreed, telling the judge he believed that Uribe’s due process rights had been violated, but he has stressed that the investigation continues.
“My request today is not a prelude of procedural steps still to come,” he said Thursday. “There will be no impunity. There will be justice.”
Uribe has vehemently denied the allegations.
His supporters contended the house arrest decision was unfair because ex-guerrillas have been allowed to remain free while they testify about war crimes. His critics argue that the courts have effectively turned a blind eye until now toward numerous accusations that Uribe had ties to paramilitary groups during the conflict.
Such groups were organized by wealthy landlords, sometimes with the complicity of the state, to fight guerrillas who espoused a leftist ideology while often resorting to kidnapping and extortion.
Jaimes said prosecutors will advance their investigation fairly.
“The victims demand truth, justice and reparations,” he said. “And the justice system should provide effective answers but always within the confines of the law.”
The case has sparked long simmering tensions over Uribe’s legacy in Colombia and how to handle those suspected of crimes during the nation’s long conflict between the state, paramilitary groups and leftist guerrillas that left hundreds of thousands dead or missing.
Uribe is widely credited in Colombia with leading a military offense that pushed the rebels to the negotiating table and the signing of the 2016 peace accord. President Donald Trump tweeted congratulations to Uribe after Saturday's ruling, praising him as a “hero” and U.S. ally in opposing the socialist government in Venezuela.
But Uribe's record is also riddled with accusations of human rights abuses. During his presidency, military officers killed thousands of poor peasants and passed them off as guerrillas to inflate body counts and get bonuses. Allegations of ties to paramilitaries have dogged him for years.
The Supreme Court’s lengthy ruling ordering his house arrest contains transcripts of numerous intercepted calls and covertly recorded conversations in which the former president pushes his lawyer and allies to pressure ex-paramilitaries into testifying that he had no ties to them.
A recently declassified U.S. Department of Defense memo shows at least one high-level official believed that Uribe “almost certainly” had dealings with paramilitaries.
Uribe has denied those accusations, saying they are part of a plot against him.
Francisco Bernate, a lawyer and professor at Colombia’s Rosario University, said the next step will be for the chief prosecutor’s office to decide if charges should be filed.
“The ball is totally in the hands of the chief prosecutor to decide the luck of the ex-president,” he said.
Iván Cepeda, the opposition lawmaker whose initial accusations against Uribe sparked the case, vowed to appeal the ruling, contending that the prosecutor handling the case showed partiality toward the ex-president during the hearing.
“We believe there is no guarantee for the rights of victims in this case,” he said.
The ruling comes as Colombia is grappling with implementation of the peace accord ending Latin America’s longest-running conflict. The deal remains divisive and many Colombians believe the terms are far too generous toward ex-combatants. Under the agreement, most are allowed to remain free so long as they confess their crimes.
Proponents of the accord say such concessions are necessary and irrevocable in order to move past a bloody chapter in the nation’s history.
Unlike in the aftermath of the Supreme Court detention order, there were no immediate protests in favor or against the decision to free Uribe. Current President Iván Duque, an acolyte of Uribe, did not issue any quick comment on the ruling as he did after the ex-president's house arrest two months ago, much to the criticism of human rights groups who accused him of meddling in judicial affairs.
José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, noted that the ruling Saturday is not a judgment against the Supreme Court’s detention order but a procedural interpretation of the law under the new framework.
He called on Colombians to respect the judge’s decision regardless of their opinion.
“That’s what Uribismo did not do when the Supreme Court ordered Uribe’s detention,” he said. “But it’s what all Colombians should do now.”
A 15-year-old Italian computer whiz who died of leukemia in 2006 has moved a step closer to possible sainthood with his beatification in the town of Assisi
11 October 2020, 04:09
4 min read
The Associated Press
An image of 15-year-old Carlo Acutis, an Italian boy who died in 2006 of leukemia, is seen durin...Read More
ASSISI, Italy -- A 15-year-old Italian computer whiz who died of leukemia in 2006 moved a step closer to possible sainthood Saturday with his beatification in the town of Assisi, where he is buried.
Carlo Acutis is the youngest contemporary person to be beatified, a path taken by two Portuguese shepherd children living in the early 1900s who were proclaimed Catholic saints in 2017.
At the beatification ceremony in the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, a portrait of Acutis was slowly unveiled, revealing a smiling teen in a red polo shirt, his curly dark hair illuminated by a halo of light. Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the papal legate for the Assisi basilicas, kissed each of the boy’s mask-wearing parents, Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano, after reading the proclamation decreed by Pope Francis.
Already touted as the “patron saint of the internet,” Acutis created a website to catalog miracles and took care of websites for some local Catholic organizations. While still in elementary school, Acutis taught himself to code using a university computer science textbook, and then learned how to edit videos and create animation.
“Carlo used the internet in service of the Gospel, to reach as many people as possible,’’ the cardinal said during his homily, adding that the teen saw the web “as a place to use with responsibility, without becoming enslaved.”
Acutis was born in London on May 3, 1991, to Italian parents and moved to Milan as a child. Already as a small child, he showed a strong religious devotion that surprised his non-practicing parents. His mother told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that from age 3 he would ask to visit churches they passed in Milan, and by age 7 had asked to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, winning an exception to the customary age requirement.
’’There was in him a natural predisposition for the sacred,” his mother said.
His curiosity prompted her to study theology in order to answer his questions, renewing her own faith.
“Carlo saved me. I was an illiterate of faith. I came back thanks to Father Ilio Carrai, the Padre Pio of Bologna, otherwise I would have felt discredited in my parental authority. It is a path that continues. I hope to at least wind up in purgatory,” she told the Milan daily.
Acutis died of acute leukemia on Oct. 12, 2006.
He was put on the road to sainthood after Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to Acutis: The healing of a 7-year-old Brazilian boy from a rare pancreatic disorder after coming into contact with an Acutis relic, a piece of one of his T-shirts.
“I was sure he was already a saint while alive. He healed a woman from cancer, praying to the Madonna of Pompeii,” his mother told Corriere.
Another verified miracle is necessary for sainthood, although Pope Francis has waived that on rare occasions.
Acutis was buried in Assisi at his own requests, having become an admirer of St. Francis of Assisi for his dedication to the poor. The Umbrian town was one of his favorite travel destinations. His body, clad in a tracksuit and sneakers, has been on display for veneration in a sanctuary in the town, and his heart will be displayed in a reliquary in the St. Francis Basilica.
Acutis told his mother that he would give her many signs of his presence after death.
“Before he left us, I told him: If in heaven you find our four-legged friends, look for Billy, my childhood dog that he never knew,” the mother said. One day she got a call from an aunt who was unaware of the mother-son pact, saying “I saw Carlo in a dream tonight. He was holding Billy in his arms.”
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