A court in Colombia sentenced conservative former President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez over the weekend to 12 years of house arrest on charges of abuse of procedure and bribery of a public official.
Additionally, Uribe was banned from holding public office for 100 months and 20 days. He must also pay the Colombian state a fine equivalent to 2,420 minimum wages, which translates to over 3.4 billion Colombian pesos (roughly $840,000).
Colombian Judge Sandra Heredia read the sentence on Friday, days after the judge found Uribe guilty of two out of three charges that the former president stood accused of throughout a highly convoluted and lengthy trial process that Colombian politicians and several senior U.S. government members denounced as a sham.
Judge Heredia reportedly asserted throughout the hearing that the house arrest sentence was “necessary” and issued the corresponding orders for Uribe to serve house arrest at his residence in the municipality of Rionegro, Antioquia.
The trial that led to last week’s sentencing against him began in 2012, when Uribe sued leftist Senator Iván Cepeda for allegedly seeking to bribe individuals to testify against him. Six years later, in 2018, Colombian courts dismissed Uribe’s complaint against Cepeda and instead ordered an investigation against Uribe for the same allegations that led to the controversial guilty conviction.
“This all has its origin in that one of the lawmakers closest to [current far-left President Gustavo] Petro, son of a revolutionary — indeed, he studied in the Soviet Union with a communist formation, who is Iván Cepeda,” Colombian Senator Paloma Valencia explained to Breitbart News last week. “He was visiting prisons — and this was absolutely proven — looking for testimonies against President Uribe tying him to paramilitaries and offering judicial benefits in exchange for these testimonies that carried humanitarian benefits.”
Uribe appealed the conviction on Friday in an online conference with the court, fiercely defending his honor, good name, and innocence. The former president denounced the ruling against him as politically biased and called upon both national and international courts to review the sentence.
“The damage to my reputation has gone through many stages, including Monday’s. And we saw how the office and the prosecutor’s office smiled and exchanged smiles,” Uribe reportedly said during the hearing. “Monday’s damage to my reputation was something that, in front of such a large audience, few Colombians have ever suffered.”
On Sunday, the former president shared a link to a website that contained a copy of his 30-page appeal document and a recording of its online presentation to the court.
The former president’s defense team asserts that Uribe’s presumption of innocence remains intact, as there are other judicial appeals still available.
Colombian outlets reported on Monday morning that Uribe’s legal team will file a writ of protection at the Colombian Supreme Court seeking to overturn the house arrest sentence issued by Judge Heredia. Jaime Granados, one of Uribe’s lawyers, will reportedly file an appeal against the guilty conviction at the Colombian top court on Wednesday, August 13.
Colombian leftist Senator Cepeda, who Uribe originally sued at the start of the legal process against the former president, claimed to reporters on Monday morning that there is a “campaign of pressure and persecution” against Judge Hereida over her sentencing of Uribe and accused Uribe’s conservative Democratic Center party of engaging in a purported “historical pattern of judicial interference.”
According to Cepeda, statements by American Secretary of State Marco Rubio and American Congressmen in support of Uribe are part of an alleged persecution campaign against the judge. Cepeda did not present evidence to substantiate his accusations.
“We know that there is an advocacy campaign in Washington promoted by sectors of the Democratic Center, with the knowledge and probably the participation of former President Uribe,” Cepeda reportedly claimed.
The Democratic Center announced that it would organize peaceful rallies on Thursday morning in support of Uribe, democracy, and freedom. At press time, the latest public update from the party indicates that rallies will be held in over 20 of Colombia’s main cities, with similar gatherings organized in the United States in Miami and Houston, and in five different cities in Spain, including Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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