Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been found guilty of witness tampering and bribery in a landmark trial, becoming the country’s first ex-president to ever be found guilty at trial.
Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia ruled on Monday that there was enough evidence to determine that Uribe, 73, conspired with a lawyer to coax three former members of paramilitary groups who were in prison into changing testimony they had provided to Ivan Cepeda, a left-wing senator who had launched an investigation into Uribe’s alleged ties to a paramilitary group in the 1990s.
The case dates to 2012, when Uribe filed a libel suit against Cepeda with the Supreme Court. But in a twist, the high court dismissed the charges against Cepeda and began investigating Uribe in 2018.
Uribe faces up to 12 years in prison, but a sentencing will be delivered in a separate hearing on Friday. He is expected to appeal the ruling.
Uribe’s critics have celebrated his trial as the deserved downfall of a man repeatedly accused of close relationships with violent right-wing paramilitaries, but never convicted of any crime.
The former leader, 73, and his supporters say the process is a persecution and that he is innocent.
Uribe and one of his lawyers, Jaime Granados, joined the hearing via videolink, while another lawyer, Jaime Lombana, appeared in person.
“This is not the end of this process, the appeal is next and we are going to demonstrate that this decision, which we respect, is wrong,” lawyer Juan Felipe Amaya, part of Uribe’s legal team, told journalists at the court.
Granados told the hearing that the presumption of Uribe’s innocence should be maintained and asked for him to remain free during the remainder of the process.
Both detractors and supporters gathered outside the court, with some Uribe backers sporting masks of his face.
Even if the conviction is eventually upheld, Uribe may be allowed to serve his final sentence on house arrest because of his age.
Uribe’s trial triggered criticism from United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Uribe had a close relationship with the US during his two terms as president between 2002 and 2010, as right-wing governments in Latin America have often had.
“Uribe’s only crime has been to tirelessly fight and defend his homeland. The weaponisation of Colombia’s judicial branch by radical judges has now set a worrisome precedent,” Rubio said on X.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a leftist, defended the ruling, writing on X that “a strong justice system” will enable Colombia to emerge from violence. He added in another message that Rubio was interfering with Colombia’s sovereignty.
“A decision against the ex-president could generate some kind of reprisal by the government of the United States,” Banco de Bogota said in a note on Monday, referring to a proposal by US Republican lawmaker Mario Diaz-Balart to cut non-military aid to Colombia next year, partly on concerns of due process violations in the Uribe case.
Uribe, who was placed under house arrest for two months in 2020, is head of the powerful Democratic Centre party and was a senator for years both before and after his presidency.
He has repeatedly emphasised that he extradited paramilitary leaders to the US.
Colombia’s truth commission says paramilitary groups, which demobilised under deals with Uribe’s government, killed more than 205,000 people, nearly half of the 450,000 deaths recorded during the ongoing civil conflict.
In recent decades, right-wing paramilitary groups across Latin America – backed by the US – along with the armed forces of allied governments, have been responsible not only for killings, but also for forced disappearances, sexual violence, mass displacement, and other grave human rights abuses.
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