According to local media reports, former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe was sentenced to 12 years of house arrest after being found guilty of bribery and witness tampering.
Uribe, 73, received a $578,000 fine and a one-year, or just over eight years, ban from holding public office at the sentencing hearing on Friday.
He must now file a report with Rionegro, in his native Antioquia province, to the authorities. After that, Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia placed him under house arrest and told him to “proceed immediately to his residence where he will comply with house arrest.”
Uribe is the first former Colombian president to be found guilty in a criminal trial since his conviction on July 28.
However, Uribe’s defense attorneys have already made an appeals request.
The popular conservative leader, who is regarded as one of the defining forces in contemporary Colombian politics, is the subject of a six-month trial and nearly 13 years of legal back-and-forth following the sentencing.
Additionally, he is under house arrest less than a year before Colombia’s May 2026 presidential elections are scheduled.
human rights violations are made.
The case centers on Uribe’s involvement in Colombia’s more than six-decade-long internal conflict, which has involved government forces, right-wing paramilitaries, left-wing rebel groups, and drug-trafficking networks fighting for control of specific areas.
Uribe spearheaded a strong-armed assault against left-wing rebels like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest group at the time, during his tenure as president from 2002 to 2010.
However, he was criticized for his alleged human rights violations, which he has refuted.
The Colombian military was increasingly accused under his presidency of killing civilians to increase the number of enemy fighters who could be declared dead.
At least 2, 000 people have died as a result of this practice, known as the “false positives” scandal, with experts suggesting that the figure could be much higher. There have been 6,402 murders investigated.
Another claim that the former president refuted was that Uribe had ties to right-wing paramilitaries.
But more than ten years ago, Uribe intervened to stop left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda from being one of his most infamous critics, stoking the current trial.
Cepeda and others had ties between Bloque Metro and Uribe’s rise in politics in the 1990s.
A legal boomerang
After the senator began an investigation into the former president’s paramilitary contacts, Uribe filed a libel complaint against Cepeda with Colombia’s Supreme Court in 2012.
However, the case changed dramatically in 2018: Cepeda was dismissed by the Supreme Court, and the court system instead began to weigh charges against Uribe.
Uribe was charged with attempting to persuade paramilitary witnesses to change or obstruct their testimony by the prosecution. Uribe has denied engaging in illegal behavior, despite admitting to speaking with former Colombian paramilitaries.
Two paramilitaries have testified that Diego Cadena, Uribe’s attorney, gave them money to provide favorable evidence.
In a murder trial involving Uribe’s brother, Santiago Uribe, were their witness statements used as well.
Following a 10-hour hearing where Judge Heredia claimed there was ample evidence that the ex-president sought to change witness testimony, Uribe’s conviction was revealed.
The United States has responded to that decision, where President Donald Trump’s administration has shown a willingness to put political pressure on nations like Brazil, which are trying to prosecute former right-wing leaders in criminal cases.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeated accusations of judicial bias that have become a problem in recent years in support of Uribe on Monday in a statement on social media.
Rubio said that former Colombian President Uribe has always been guilty of fighting and protecting his country. “The use of radical judges’ weapons by Colombia’s judicial branch has created a worrying precedent.”
Trump was charged by US Democrats with trying to undermine the rule of law abroad in order to win political favors.
In response to Rubio’s message, Rep. Jim McGovern wrote, “The Trump Administration is saying that foreign leaders shouldn’t be subject to the rule of law if they say nice things about him.”
Source: Aljazeera
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