An alarming issue appeared in yesterday’s El Tiempo interview with Colombia’s prosecutor-general, Mario Iguarán. There is a real possibility that all of the Colombian politicians and officials currently under arrest for suspected paramilitary ties could be freed on a legal technicality at the end of June.
Iguarán: [I]n these investigations, the [Supreme] Court and the Prosecutor-General’s Office are working within the longer investigation periods allowed by the specialized justice system. But the Law of Specialized Justice, which gives much more time to investigate than the regular justice system does, expires soon, on June 30. That is why we have asked the Congress to approve, before June 16, legislation that will allow us to keep working within the terms of specialized justice. If Congress does not approve this law for us, our ability to investigate as we should will run serious risks.
El Tiempo: What risks?
Iguarán: That many people who today are being investigated and tried under the terms of specialized justice – for example, for conspiracy – will be let out of jail.
El Tiempo: They will all get out?
Iguarán: That is the risk. That is why I have sent official communications to the presidents of the Senate and House, and the bill has a “message of urgency†from the executive branch. It has passed in the committees, but has yet to go through the full houses.
El Tiempo: The congresspeople under investigation could also be freed?
Iguarán: The [Supreme] Court [which handles the cases against legislators] would also have its investigation periods cut back, because it is also working within the specialized justice system. That is what happened in the [César] Gaviria administration, when because the period expired, Prosecutor-General [Gustavo] De Greiff had to set Pablo Escobar free. In order to keep that from happening, Gaviria declared a state of siege.
In other words, Iguarán is saying that if the Congress doesn’t approve a bill in less than four weeks, the twelve congresspeople and various other officials in prison awaiting trial for helping paramilitaries could receive a “get out of jail free†card.
Is this likely to happen? Probably not – the bill to renew the “specialized justice†system appears to be moving, slowly but steadily, through the Congress. Its passage will keep the suspected paramilitary collaborators in jail. Nonetheless, the prosecutor-general is clearly worried that the bill could quietly fail.
Will the members of the pro-Uribe majority in Colombia’s Congress do the right thing and pass the bill? Or will they do a favor for their jailed colleagues – and for themselves, as many are also under a cloud of suspicion – by letting the “specialized justice†statute expire?
