Colombian ex-leader denies role in bloody 1990s massacres

Colombian ex-leader Alvaro Uribe on Friday denied responsibility for two massacres and the killing of a human rights defender in the 1990s, ahead of a hearing about his role in those events.

Right-wing Uribe oversaw a brutal offensive against guerrillas between 2002 and 2010 and is allegedly tied to paramilitaries active during Colombia's decades-long armed conflict.

The 74-year-old is due to give his account of paramilitary massacres that occurred in two Antioquian villages in the 1990s when he was governor of the violence-ridden region.

He will also testify regarding the 1998 murder of community leader Jesus Maria Valle, who was shot dead in the region's capital Medellin after denouncing the massacres.

"I thought I had served the nation, but today I come to say that I have not been a murderer," Uribe said in Bogota ahead of the hearing.

Surrounded by heavily clad security, he insisted the investigation was politically motivated.

Last year, Uribe was sentenced to 12 years of house arrest for bribing imprisoned paramilitaries not to link him to them, but the sentence was later overturned.

During the massacres in El Aro in 1997 and in La Granja in 1996, paramilitaries killed dozens of people, burned their homes and stole their cattle.

Victims and witnesses in El Aro said they saw a regional governor helicopter flying over the site for days, providing protection to the paramilitaries.

Drug trafficking, paramilitary activity and the presence of armed groups caused extreme violence in Antioquia in the 1990s.

Prosecutors accuse Uribe of "facilitating and promoting" the paramilitaries, with his family ranch serving as a base for their operations.

His brother Santiago Uribe was sentenced last year to 28 years in prison for leading a paramilitary squad known as "The 12 Apostles."

Alvaro Uribe's defense has attempted to delay and even suspend the probe into the ex-leader's alleged involvement.

In 2006, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned the Colombian state for omission in the massacres, and two years later for the extrajudicial killing of Maria Valle.

Victims of the massacres have been demanding justice for years.