Bogotá.- A Colombian court revoked this Tuesday the sentence against former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010) and acquitted him of the crimes of bribery in criminal proceedings and procedural fraud for which he had been sentenced in the first instance to twelve years of house arrest.
The defense of the right-wing former president, 73 years old, and one of the most influential politicians of this century in Colombia, had appealed the decision of Judge Sandra Heredia who last August, in the so-called ‘trial of the century’ in the country, made him the first Colombian head of state to be criminally convicted.
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The Superior Court of Bogotá, the same one that had ordered Uribe’s release while his case was being resolved on appeal, sided with the former president today and exonerated him of all charges against him.
However, the left-wing senator and presidential pre-candidate Iván Cepeda, considered a victim in this case, announced that he will take the case to cassation in the Supreme Court of Justice, which will have the last word.
Innocent of both crimes
In reading the second instance ruling, magistrate Manuel Antonio Merchán indicated that there is insufficient evidence to prove that Uribe ordered to offer benefits to former paramilitaries Carlos Enrique Vélez, Eurídice Cortés and Juan Guillermo Monsalve in exchange for them not linking him to the creation of a paramilitary group.
Furthermore, the court found that the crime of procedural fraud was not substantiated and declared illegal some telephone interceptions of Uribe in 2018 because they were initiated by mistake when another person was being investigated.
“The trial court incurred methodological errors, interpretive fallacy, and biased assessment of evidence, when constructing inferences about its functional ordination (sic) and malice without objective support,” the magistrate stated.
This case against Uribe, who always defended his innocence and called the first conviction political persecution, dates back to 2012, when the then-senator sued Cepeda before the Supreme Court of Justice for alleged manipulation of witnesses, while the latter was preparing a complaint in Congress against him for alleged links with paramilitary groups.
However, the Court not only decided not to investigate Cepeda but also opened a process against Uribe upon finding evidence that he manipulated witnesses to prevent them from linking him to the paramilitarism that confronted the leftist guerrillas during the Colombian armed conflict.
Politics Reacts
One of the first to react to Uribe’s acquittal was the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, who stated that the ruling “covers up the paramilitary history in Colombia” and of those who “came to power allied with drug trafficking and unleashed the genocide in Colombia”.
Petro, located at the political antipodes of Uribe, also called on citizens to meet next Friday in Plaza de Bolívar, in the heart of Bogotá, “to begin the collection of signatures for the constituent power”.
On the other end of the political spectrum, the Colombian right celebrated the “great victory of democracy and the rule of law”, as former President Iván Duque, elected in 2018 by the Democratic Center party, founded and led by Uribe, said.
Also, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and three candidates from the Democratic Center for the Colombian Presidency for next year’s elections: Paloma Valencia, María Fernanda Cabal and Miguel Uribe Londoño, expressed their support for the former president.
For Cabal, the failure confirms that “Uribe was a victim of a political strategy designed to silence his leadership and try to destroy his legacy”, while Valencia celebrated the defense of his “honor and good name”, and Uribe Londoño described the decision as a “defeat of lies, hatred and political persecution”.
Uribe, who according to his party plans to be a candidate for the Senate in the legislative elections of March 2026, anticipated -on his social media- that he will offer “a few words” tonight.
