Alvaro Uribe denies role in 1990s Colombia massacres

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

Uribe, 74, is due to give his account of paramilitary massacres in the Antioquian villages of La Granja in 1996 and El Aro in 1997, when he was governor of the region. He will also testify regarding the 1998 killing of community leader Jesus Maria Valle, who was shot dead in 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. He said the investigation was politically motivated.

Paramilitaries killed dozens of people during the El Aro and La Granja massacres, burned homes and stole cattle. Victims and witnesses in El Aro said they saw a regional governor helicopter flying over the site for days and providing protection to the paramilitaries.

Prosecutors accuse Uribe of "facilitating and promoting" the paramilitaries, with his family ranch serving as a base for their operations. Uribe's defense has attempted to delay and suspend the probe into his alleged involvement.

Uribe oversaw an offensive against guerrillas between 2002 and 2010 and is alleged to have ties to paramilitaries active during Colombia's armed conflict. 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 was sentenced last year to 12 years of house arrest for bribing imprisoned paramilitaries not to link him to them, but the sentence was later overturned.

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 Valle.