Bogotá.- The case of the former Colombian president
Álvaro Uribe, sentenced in the first instance to twelve years in prison under house arrest for the crimes of procedural fraud and bribery in criminal proceedings, is far from over due to the appeal of the sentence that his defense will present this month.
Uribe, who governed Colombia between 2002 and 2010 and is one of the country’s most influential politicians, was found guilty of attempting to manipulate witnesses to prevent them from testifying against him in a case related to his alleged links to paramilitarism.
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The lawyer Jaime Granados, Uribe’s main defender, confirmed on the same Friday, the day the sentence was read, that he will file an appeal. The court has until October 16 to confirm, modify, or revoke the sentence issued by Judge Sandra Heredia, of the 44th Criminal Circuit Court of Bogotá.
“I believe that the Superior Court of Bogotá will have the capacity to prioritize this judicial process, which is fundamental for everyone, because here we are facing a guilty verdict in the first instance, but this has not ended, the debate continues,” said lawyer Miguel Ángel del Río, who represents the victims, in a channel he opened on Youtube to analyze the case.
Del Río added that it will be said court, where three magistrates will examine the case, the one that will establish “whether the decision by Judge 44 is confirmed or if it is revoked”.
Race Against Time
This Monday begins the count of the seven business days that the judge granted the defense to present the appeal to her ruling, which has caused a debate in the country due to the forcefulness of the sentence, which in addition to the twelve years in prison for Uribe includes a fine of more than 3.4 billion Colombian pesos (about 822,000 dollars) and disqualifies him for more than eight years from exercising public functions.
The initial five-day deadline for the appeal was due to end on August 11, taking into account that August 7 is a holiday in Colombia, but Granados asked the judge for five more days, given the length of the ruling, of 1,114 pages, and Heredia only granted him two, arguing that the defender knows the case very well.
“The defense attorney (…) knows this process perfectly because let’s remember that it was he himself who, exercising the representation of Mr. Álvaro Uribe Vélez, filed the complaint before the Supreme Court of Justice, if I am not mistaken, in February 2012, which is the birth to legal life and everything that subsequently entailed this process”, argued the judge.
The case for which Uribe, 73, and leader of the right-wing Democratic Center party, was convicted, began in 2012 when he sued the Supreme Court of Justice for alleged witness tampering against left-wing congressman Iván Cepeda, who at that time was preparing a complaint in the Senate against him for his alleged links to paramilitaries.
However, magistrate José Luis Barceló, who received the lawsuit, decided not to investigate Cepeda and to investigate Uribe for alleged manipulation of witnesses so that they would not testify against him.
“After the appeal resource comes the transfer to the non-appellants, in this case we are the Prosecutor’s Office and representation of victims (who will not appeal the first instance sentence) and the process will finally go to the Superior Court of Bogotá, which will have to make a decision before October 16, 2025”, Del Río pointed out.
On that date, the criminal action in this case expires and “we are very close to that event,” added the victims’ lawyer, who insisted that in the second instance “there may be a confirmation or there may be a partial revocation of some aspects in relation to the decision.”
The Hope of Uribism
Uribe’s followers, who defend his innocence tooth and nail, place their hopes in the second instance ruling for a 180-degree turn in the sentence, arguing that judges also make mistakes.
“That’s what appeals are for. The institutionality must be willing to understand that yes, judges can make mistakes and that it is susceptible to change and correct what has gone wrong. The opposite is to eliminate the guarantee of a second instance,” Senator Paloma Valencia, of the Democratic Center, stated this Sunday on X.
In the event that the Superior Court of Bogotá modifies the sentence in any way, an appeal for cassation can be filed before the Supreme Court of Justice, an instance to close the case definitively, which, according to experts, could take years.
