Superior Court of Bogota orders the immediate release of former President Álvaro Uribe

Bogotá.- The Superior Court of the Judicial District of Bogotá ordered this Tuesday the immediate release of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), sentenced in the first instance to twelve years of house arrest for a bribery case, while the appeal to the sentence is resolved in the second instance. The Criminal Decision Chamber of the Court resolved to “protect the fundamental right to individual liberty of citizen Álvaro Uribe Vélez” and annulled the decision of Judge Sandra Heredia, of the 44th Criminal Circuit Court of Bogotá, who in the sentence that imposed twelve years in prison under house arrest had ordered his “immediate deprivation of liberty”. Uribe, founder and leader of the right-wing Democratic Center party, became on August 1st the first Colombian former president to be criminally convicted, after Heredia found him guilty of the crimes of bribery in criminal proceedings and procedural fraud in the so-called ‘trial of the century’ in Colombia, a case that he himself initiated in 2012. Three days after learning of the sentence, the former president’s defense presented this tutela action (protection appeal) before the Superior Court of Bogotá, requesting his freedom, considering that the judge violated his fundamental rights.

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The legal team questioned, among other things, the magistrate’s justification for Uribe’s immediate detention with the need to guarantee “the preservation of peaceful and harmonious coexistence among citizens”, an argument that the defense described as ambiguous and lacking support, constituting an “apparent motivation”. The Court ruled in favor of the former president’s defense, but dismissed a similar appeal filed by the Democratic Center, considering that it did not demonstrate how the restriction of its leader’s freedom affected its own fundamental rights or those of the political organization. The ruling indicates that in the appeal resources, several comments and decisions of the process were questioned, which “allegedly reveal that the judge and prosecutor acted with partiality, abuse of functions, disrespect, defending political and ideological interests, and with animosity towards the citizen and processed former president”, although it clarified that these allegations must be resolved in the second instance and not in this protection. Uribe’s defense appealed the sentence on August 13th to the Superior Court of Bogotá, which has until October 16th to rule on the second instance. This case began thirteen years ago when Uribe, now 73 years old, sued before the Supreme Court of Justice for alleged witness tampering against the left-wing congressman Iván Cepeda, who at that time was preparing a complaint in the Senate against him for his alleged links with paramilitary groups. Contrary to what Uribe imagined, the Court decided not to investigate Cepeda and instead opened an investigation into him for manipulating witnesses so that they would not testify against him.