A Colombian judge on Monday convicted conservative former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez on charges of abuse of process and bribery of a public official in a trial widely denounced as irregular by local and international politicians and his supporters.
The former president’s defense team and his party, the Democratic Center, stressed that they will appeal the ruling all the way to the Colombian Supreme Court if needed.
Uribe, 73, is one of the most prominent conservative figures in Colombia and a two-time president between 2002 and 2010. He was reelected in 2006 during the brief time Colombia’s constitution was amended to allow presidential reelections before the amendment was reversed in 2015. Uribe is also considered a kingmaker for his two immediate successors, Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) and Iván Duque (2018-2022).
Since 2012, Uribe has been at the center of a highly convoluted legal process that is in its 13th year at press time. It started while Uribe served as senator and sued leftist lawmaker Iván Cepeda for allegedly looking for paramilitary members to testify against Uribe and link him to the purported creation of a paramilitary group in the 1990s on a ranch that belonged to Uribe’s family.
The process took a new turn in 2018 when the Colombian Supreme Court dismissed Uribe’s complaint against Cepeda and instead opened a new case against Uribe on allegations of committing fraud and witness tampering in his lawsuit against the leftist lawmaker. As part of the process against him, Uribe was placed under house arrest between August and October 2020.
On Monday, Colombian Judge Sandra Heredia ruled at the end of a ten-hour court session to convict Uribe on two abuse and bribery charges. Uribe was acquitted on a separate simple bribery charge. Prosecutor Marlene Orjuela reportedly requested that Uribe be given a nine-year prison sentence and equally long ban from running for public office as well as a fine.
The court will announce its decision on the sentence on Friday, August 1 at 2 p.m. (local time). According to local outlets, the entire court ruling is roughly 1,000-pages long.
“Justice does not bow down to power. Justice does not see names, positions, or status,” Judge Heredia said at the opening of the hearing before reportedly breaking the court’s protocol.
Jaime Granados, one of Uribe’s lawyers, spoke with Caracol Radio on Tuesday morning and announced that they will appeal the ruling within the five working days that local law stipulates once the full sentence is revealed on Friday.
“We cannot anticipate the details of what we do not yet know. What is clear from the ruling, with which we disagree, is what we are going to appeal, and the appeal will be filed within five business days of the ruling, that is, by August 11, but first we have to study it,” Granados explained.
“Finally, the punishment will be house arrest, and that will happen once the decision becomes legally binding, because the presumption of innocence remains intact, and the defense’s aspiration is that the court’s decision will be overturned,” he added.
Uribe’s Democratic Center party released a statement on Monday evening expressing support for Uribe and his family. The party emphasized that although the party would comply with the ruling, it will be appealed before the Superior Court of Bogotá as established by law and, if necessary, other higher courts such as the Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice.
“We would like to remind you that this is not a final decision. While legal appeals are pending, former President Uribe retains his presumption of innocence, as guaranteed by the Constitution and due process,” the statement read. “We will continue to act with institutional respect, legal firmness, and full confidence that the truth and innocence of former President Uribe will prevail.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media that Uribe’s only crime has been “to tirelessly fight and defend his homeland” and expressed that the weaponization of Colombia’s judicial branch by radical judges “has now set a worrisome precedent.” Similarly, Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), and other U.S. and Colombian lawmakers and former presidents expressed their support for former President Uribe.
Sec. Rubio’s message appears to have infuriated Colombia’s far-left President Gustavo Petro and his new Foreign Minister Yolanda Villavicencio.
Villaviencio publicly rejected Sec. Rubio’s statements on social media, claiming that “his interference in Colombian judicial matters undermines our sovereignty and disregards the independence of the judiciary.” Shortly afterwards, Petro, quoting Villavicencio’s post, said that “interference in the judicial affairs of another country is an interference in national sovereignty.”
“The world must respect Colombia’s judges, many of whom have been murdered for helping the world,” Petro’s message read.
Last week, a report presented by Rep. Díaz-Balart at the U.S. House Appropriations Committee cited the committee’s concerns over reports of multiple due process violations and judicial irregularities committed against Uribe in the trial as one of the reasons to slash U.S. funding to Colombia during FY2026. The committee also cited President Gustavo Petro’s alleged drug addiction and the assassination attempt against Senator Miguel Uribe (no relation to the former president) as reasons to cut funding to the South American nation.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.