Former Colombia President Uribe denounces case against him as political vengeance

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s influential former President Álvaro Uribe has denounced as “vengeance” a move by national prosecutors to bring him to trial in a case of witness tampering that has shadowed his political legacy. Uribe insisted in a video message that there was no evidence against him, a day after prosecutors announced their intention to formally charge Uribe with bribery of witnesses in criminal proceedings and procedural fraud. That would make Uribe the first former president to face trial in Colombia. The case against Uribe derives from allegations made a decade ago by an opposition senator that Uribe was tied to the creation of a paramilitary group. The former president was accused of bribing former paramilitaries to change their testimonies.