They condemn the former president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe to 12 years in immediate house prison after being guilty of bribery of witnesses and procedural fraud

The former president will appeal the decision, which will now go to the Superior Court of Bogotá.

This instance must be pronounced before next October, date on which crimes are prescribed.

Uribe, who ruled Colombia between 2002 and 2010, is the first ex -president to be criminally convicted in the history of the country.

He was convicted on Monday of having instigated third parties to manipulate witnesses after being accused in 2012 of having links with paramilitary groups by Senator Iván Cepeda in Congress.

The ruling and the domiciliary prison penalty arrive after 13 years of a complex and media judicial battle marked by polarization and with unpredictable political consequences.

Analysis of José Carlos Cueto – BBC News world correspondent in Colombia

Uribe's reading was scheduled from 2.00 pm in the afternoon local time.

But from at least two hours earlier, the final punishment leaked through news and local media agencies: 12 years of house prison with immediate effect.

The sentence outraged the Uribistas and rejoiced the most fervent detractors of the former president.

Press, jurists and many analysts predicted that the penalty would not exceed 9 years, in corcordance with what the Prosecutor's Office had requested, and with the fact that Uribe had been acquitted of one of the three crimes for which he was processed.

Nor did they think that, since the defense will appeal and that Uribe's behavior in the trial was flattered by Judge Sandra Heredia, the sanction would be imposed immediately.

A penalty of such magnitude further inflames those who, like Uribe, live convinced that he suffers political persecution.

The judicial battle started in 2012 after the then congressman Iván Cepeda, supported by the testimonies of paramilitary leaders, linked the former president to the emergence of the armed group Metro block at the end of the 90s in Antioquia.

The Metro block was a branch of the United Self -Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) that faced the leftist guerrillas and left thousands of dead civilians during the Colombian internal conflict.

Uribe denounced Cepeda before the Supreme Court, accusing him of having manipulated the paramilitaries to speak against him, but in 2018 that instance dismissed the complaint.

In an unexpected turn of the events, the Court initiated a investigation against Uribe because there were indications that it was people from the Uribe circle who tried to manipulate witnesses.

The Supreme Court ordered in August 2020 the house arrest of Uribe because it considered that there were “risks of obstruction to justice.”

Uribe was arrested for 66 days and resigned from his senator seat.

For this reason, the Court ceased to have the jurisdiction to process it and the case went to ordinary justice.

In the following years, the prosecutors in charge asked to close the case because they considered that there was not enough evidence to accuse the former president.

Orders were rejected by justice twice.

After the arrival at the Adriana Camargo Prosecutor's Office, nominated for the position by Gustavo Petro, Uribe was finally called to trial.

Uribe joined a list of Latin American ex -president who faced criminal proceedings and even went to jail, such as the Peruvian Alberto Fujimori, the Brazilian Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Ecuadorian Rafael Correa, Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the Panamanian Ricardo Martinelli.

After knowing the penalty, the Democratic Center Party, founded by Uribe, summoned a demonstration of support to the former president on August 7.

“We respect institutions and believe in justice, but we are also convinced that today an innocent man is being condemned,” said the formation in a statement.

Hours before a complaint from Uribe was made public against the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, for “direct, unfounded and lacking judicial support, attributing to former president Uribe seriously criminal behaviors such as homicides, drug trafficking, paramilitarism and corruption.”

“There is no criminal conviction or judicial decision that supports these statements,” adds the statement of the firm Victor Mosquera Marín Lawyers.

This after Petro said in X on July 29, in reference to the trial against Uribe, that “the central theme of the investigation is how the Metro of the Paramilitaries of Antioquia was founded and why the same paramilitaries exterminated it.”

“To the JEP (special justice for peace) can go Uribe Vélez and deliver to Colombia a truth that, although painful, can help out of violence,” added the president.

The JEP is a transitional justice agency created after the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC in 2016 that prioritizes the repair and search for truth for the victims of the armed conflict.

Senator Cepeda, who accused Uribe of having alleged links with paramilitaries, said in an interview with BBC Mundo this week that, once the former president was condemned for bribery of witnesses and procedural fraud, he “opens the possibility to other advances that can unravel what he wanted to cover up.”

Cepeda, after Monday, also offered Uribe the possibility of achieving an agreement and telling “the truth.”

Jerónimo Uribe, one of the former president's children, framed his father's sentence within a “strategy” of De Petro.

The president responded by saying that in his strategy “there is not Uribe's conviction, there is Uribe's freedom”, in a phrase that seems to go in line with his calls to declare Uribe before the JEP.

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