Álvaro Uribe: They declare the former president of Colombia guilty of the crimes of bribery and procedural fraud

- Author, Writing
- Author's title, BBC News World
July 29, 2025, 00:18 GMT

Updated 3 hours

The former president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez was convicted on Monday of the crimes of procedural fraud and bribery in criminal action by a court of Bogotá, in an unprecedented ruling in the history of the country.

The verdict of Judge Sandra Heredia, who can be appealed, establishes that Uribe ordered third parties to manipulate imprisoned witnesses to declare in his favor after being accused in the congress of having links with paramilitary groups by Senator Iván Cepeda in 2012.

The former Colombian president, who has always denied the facts and alleges that he is the victim of a political persecution, was acquitted of the simple bribery crime.

In an upcoming hearing the conviction will be announced, which could be up to 9 years in jail.

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

At the hearing on Monday, which lasted for more than 10 hours, Judge Heredia said she could prove that Uribe induced lawyer Diego Cadena to commit the crimes for which the ex -president was convicted.

“There is no doubt that the defendant knew about his procedure … he executed her from the shadows,” said the magistrate.

The ruling comes after 13 years of a complex and media judicial battle, marked by polarization and whose political consequences seem unpredictable.

Photo foot, Supporters and detractors of Uribe took to the streets on Monday before the verdict was known.

Failure reactions

Shortly after the condemnatory ruling, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said that “the only crime of former Colombian president Uribe has been tirelessly fighting to defend his homeland.”

And he added that the “instrumentalization of the judicial branch by radical judges feels a worrying precendant.”

Of that narrative they echoed Republican congressmen with relations with Colombia, such as Bernie Moreno and Mario Díaz-Balart.

In his X account, President Gustavo Petro said that both supporters and non -supporters of Uribe must respect justice, adding that his government does not prescribe the judges.

He also referred to the statements of American politicians about the case saying that “it is nothing but an outrage that we do not allow.”

Colombian right politicians reacted to the decision expressing their solidarity with the former president and questioning the impartiality of Judge Sandra Heredia.

The presidential senator and candidate Maria Fernanda Cabal, who was present at the hearing and is one of the main leaders of the Uribe party, said that the judgment of the judge seemed written by political enemies of the former president.

“This ruling that we do not share will be the engine to fight for a justice system that will never be instrumentalized to prosecute politics,” said Cabal, anticipating that the sentence will be part of the political campaign that is coming.

For their part, politicians of the Government Party, to which Iván Cepeda belongs (one of the accredited victims), held the conviction against Uribe.

The presidential candidate and former senator Gustavo Bolívar said: “Justice brings together but arrives (…) begins to be done justice.”

The same contrast between followers and opponents of Uribe was seen on the outskirts of the Paloquemao Judicial Complex, where the reading hearing was held.

Paloquemao Judicial Complex Complex — Photo foot, Judge Sandra Heredia acknowledged that the process has aroused “passions” and “emotions” in the country.

The history of the conviction

The judicial battle started in 2012, when the then congressman Iván Cepeda, supported by the testimonies of two paramilitary leaders, linked the former president to the emergence of the armed group Metro block in the late 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 talk against Uribe, but after years of investigations, 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.

One of the evidence of it is a recording that Juan Guillermo Monsalve, a convicted exparamilitary, in the La Picota prison.

In the recording Diego Cadena is heard, then Uribe's lawyer, to offer Monsalve legal benefits in exchange for declaring in favor of the former president.

In October 2019, then Senator Uribe was formally linked to a criminal process before the Supreme Court. Since then, the 6 -year period that Colombian justice had to reach a ruling began to run.

Within the framework of the investigation, 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 at that time he resigned from his seat in Congress.

For this reason, the Court ceased to have the jurisdiction to process it and the case went to ordinary justice. From then on, Uribe began to be investigated and processed as anyone who commits a crime in Colombia.

In the following years, the prosecutors in charge requested the preclusion (that is, the closing of the case), because they considered that there was not enough evidence to accuse the former president.

The preclusion 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.

In the words of Judge Sandra Heredia, the trial was “a marathon fight against the clock.”

The judge accelerated the hearings to prevent crimes from prescribing, and this Monday, after a few months of presenting evidence and allegations, he concluded that Uribe is guilty.

Both parties can appeal the decision, in which case there will be three magistrates of the Superior Court of Bogotá who decide whether the sentence is maintained or must be modified.

Uribe will remain free, at least until he knows how many years he is convicted, and could pay his penalty in house prison.