Colombia, links between drug traffickers and Democratic Centre political party were exposed

teleSUR English

*A preliminary investigation was opened in relation to an alleged donation to Uribe's campaign in 2018 *The court's investigating chamber ordered this preliminary investigation *Processes against former president are a historic event

Transcript

00:00In Colombia, the Supreme Court opens preliminary investigation of former President Uribe now

00:04for allegedly receiving drug trafficking funds for his 2018 Senate campaign.

00:09A correspondent in Antobar with all the details.

00:14Independent press in Colombia had denounced evidence of links between drug traffickers

00:18and the right-wing Democratic Center political party.

00:21Articles that confirmed the presence of characters, such as the pilot David Nino Catano, who now

00:26appears related to an investigation against former President and Senator Alvaro Uribe

00:31when he was running for the Senate in 2018.

00:37Those in charge of transporting Alvaro Uribe's aircraft were two pilots Samuel David Nino

00:41Catano who disappeared in Guatemala in December 2019 in a plane crash, transporting cocaine

00:52for the Sinaloa cartel and Juan Camilo Cadena, who was a pilot sentenced to 10 years for

00:56drug trafficking and who was flying an aircraft that was seized with half a ton of cocaine

00:59in Providencia on May 25, 2021.

01:08These two pilots, one disappeared in Guatemala and the other already convicted, were Alvaro

01:13Uribe's official pilots in his Senate campaign.

01:21In this context, a preliminary investigation was opened by the Supreme Court of Justice

01:26in relation to an alleged donation made by pilot David Nino of approximately $4,800 to

01:32Uribe's campaign for his re-election to the Senate in 2018.

01:39The former president is the political figure in Colombia who is closest to drug trafficking.

01:43There are 51 inquirings that exist about him.

01:45That is to say that when any investigator, any prosecutor, any magistrate, any journalist

01:50takes the time range between 1974 and 2025, he realizes that the scandal of the narco

01:55pilots that we uncovered in the press is only one inquiry out of a dozen inquirings that

01:59Uribe has about drug trafficking, about paramilitarism, and about the drug trafficking.

02:09Former President Uribe can hardly run away from justice, not only because in several

02:14cases people who were part of his entourage have been prosecuted and have been convicted

02:19among them.

02:20His chief of security, the former director of the administrative department of security,

02:29an important delegation of congressmen who have supported him, have been investigated

02:34and convicted for paramilitarism.

02:37It is the court's investigating chamber that ordered this preliminary investigation, which

02:48has already been notified to Uribe, after having gone through the National Electoral

02:52Council, where a complaint was received warning of possible irregularities in the financing

02:57of his campaign.

02:58From there, the National Electoral Center referred the case to the prosecutor's office

03:02delegated to the high court, and in October last year it went to the Supreme Court.

03:10What this investigation does is that with the body of investigators, which is quite

03:13complete and where technology allows to investigate at the electronic level, communications, mobilizations,

03:21radars, locomotion sites, places of permanence, all this is allowed by technology.

03:28It is to know if he received that money and if that person is indeed linked to drug trafficking.

03:39This legal situation is in addition to the trial process that the former president is

03:43already facing for the crimes of procedural fraud and bribery of witnesses, is a historic

03:48event in Colombia.

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