Bogotá.- The former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) was sentenced to a 12-year prison term to be served under house arrest for the crimes of procedural fraud and bribery in criminal proceedings, according to a ruling released this Friday.
The document indicates that the judge of the 44th Criminal Court of Bogotá, Sandra Heredia, who will read the ruling from 14:00 local time (19:00 GMT), resolved to impose on Uribe a sentence, in the first instance, of 12 years in prison, a fine of more than 3.4 billion Colombian pesos (about 822,000 dollars) and disqualified him for more than eight years from the exercise of public rights and functions.You may be interested in: http://Former President Uribe sues President Petro for “harassment and slander”
The historic failure
Heredia considered that the former president and leader of the Democratic Center, through emissaries, offered benefits to persons deprived of liberty with the aim of being favored in other processes that Justice was carrying out against him. Likewise, he is accused of manipulating witnesses through third parties to link Senator Iván Cepeda with illegal acts. According to the verdict, the former president is guilty of the crime of bribery in criminal proceedings because, through his former lawyer Diego Cadena, he tried to bribe and financially incentivize several witnesses to testify falsely before the court. Although the current lawyers pointed out that the act was committed behind Uribe’s back and that Cadena acted voluntarily; the judge determined that the politician knew of his actions in the country’s prisons and that in the trial the former president’s actions in the crime were “sufficiently proven” of bribery in criminal proceedings. The magistrate also indicated that the crime of procedural fraud was established, as a deliberate strategy of manipulation of justice was being carried out, through a memorial prepared by Cadena and a video delivered by the substitute lawyer Juan Felipe Amaya, filed before the high court. The historic ruling unleashed a wave of internal reactions for and against both the ruling and the judge and the former president. There was even a pronouncement by the U.S., made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was critical of the decision and noted that “Uribe’s only crime” “has been to fight and tirelessly defend his homeland” and that “the instrumentalization of the Colombian Judiciary by radical judges has now set a worrying precedent.”In response, the Colombian Supreme Court of Justice stated its “firm rejection of undue interference and expressions from voices suggesting that the decisions made by the judges do not conform to the legal system”.
Meanwhile, President Gustavo Petro called Rubio’s statements an “intrusion into national sovereignty” and urged the international community to “respect the judges of Colombia”.A years-long investigation
The Attorney General’s Office accused Uribe in May 2024 of the crimes of bribery, procedural fraud, and bribery in criminal proceedings, after between 2012 and 2014, Senator Cepeda presented testimonies from former paramilitaries Juan Guillermo Monsalve and Pablo Hernán Sierra, who claimed to have met with Uribe during his term as governor of the department of Antioquia. In response, the former president denounced Cepeda before the Supreme Court for slander, procedural fraud, and abuse of public function. In 2018, the court found evidence that Uribe had manipulated testimonies to incriminate Cepeda, which is why in 2020 he was sentenced to house arrest, where he remained for 67 days. At that time, he served as a senator and resigned from the position so as not to be judged by the Supreme Court, but by the ordinary justice system, through the Prosecutor’s Office.Although the prosecuting entity requested the preclusion of the process in 2021, in 2022 two judges rejected that request. In 2024, with the arrival of Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo, finally, the former president was called to trial, accused of bribery of witnesses, procedural fraud, and a new charge of bribery. Since February of this year, the case has been kept under constant prescription.
