BOGOTA (Reuters) – A Colombian judge dismissed on Wednesday a request by the attorney general’s office to shelve a witness-tampering investigation against divisive former President Alvaro Uribe, saying the case should go to trial.
The decision by Judge Carmen Helena Ortiz revived a long-running and deeply polarizing investigation, which saw the attorney general’s office ask last year for a hearing on curtailing the probe after it found Uribe’s conduct did not constitute a crime.
“It is clear for the chambers that there exists a possible hypothesis about the material nature of the crime of bribery,” Ortiz said during the hearing. “The chambers rejects the petition for preclusion of the investigation for the crimes of penal bribery and procedural fraud.”
(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
