The Colombian Supreme Court will not investigate former president Álvaro Uribe for buying votes in the electoral campaign of former president Iván Duque in 2018, in the framework of the case known as ‘Ñeñepolítica’ after Judge Misael Rodríguez stated that there is not enough evidence to initiate investigations.
According to the ruling, after the doubts caused by the complaint could not be resolved, as the Constitution states, «this uncertainty must be absolved in favor of the investigated» and «will be inhibited from opening an investigation against Álvaro Uribe Vélez».
Uribe’s lawyer has celebrated that the decision of Judge Rodriguez shows that the former president «had no contact» with the late cattle rancher and drug trafficker Guillermo ‘Ñeñe’ Hernandez and that he «did not finance the Duque campaign», reports the newspaper ‘El Tiempo’.
The complaint against Uribe dates back to March 2020, after a homicide investigation intercepted conversations between Uribe’s assistant María Claudia Daza and ‘Ñeñe’ Hernández in which they talked about «looking for money to go under the table» in the second round of those elections in which Duque defeated the now president, Gustavo Petro.
On the content of that conversation, Judge Rodriguez argues that while it may raise other questions about how resources were obtained to finance Duque’s campaign, there are no «concrete or determinable facts» that implicate Uribe.
«There is insufficient evidence that Guillermo Hernández carried out a vote-buying operation; notoriously, his telephone conversations, on which the complainants rely, do not indicate that this occurred,» says the judge.
«Nor has it been determined that Hernandez has made actions in the presidential campaign, beyond adhering to it. And finally, in third place, there is no evidence that Maria Claudia Daza had given the order to carry out the vote buying operation», reads the court ruling.
«According to the evidence collected, in accordance with the defense’s thesis, the conduct of the accused Álvaro Uribe Vélez seems to have been completely unrelated to the financing of the 2018 presidential campaign,» it concludes.
Last July, the Prosecutor’s Office filed the case against Daza, even after he acknowledged that one of the voices heard in those audios in which Hernández assures that «Iván» and «Uribe» were responsible for having sent him to Manaure, Uribía, Riohacha and Maicao to «win» in those cities.
«We have to get our act together, we have to look for money to pass under the table and release it in the departments», said Hernandez, who regretted not having the money «that was stolen from Vargas Lleras», in reference to the former vice president German Vargas Lleras during part of Juan Manuel Santos’ term in office.
The decision to close Daza’s case was criticized by the lawyers for the prosecution, who considered it «the last act of farewell from the Attorney General’s Office to President Iván Duque,» on the eve of the elections that finally brought Gustavo Petro to Casa Nariño.
Already before, in October 2021, the National Electoral Council (CNE) filed the case also pending against former president Duque for irregular financing of this 2018 campaign for lack of incriminating evidence.
