The former president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez has been sentenced this Friday to 12 years in house prison, a penalty that will be immediately applied. It is the decision of Judge Sandra Heredia, who on Monday condemned the ex -president in the most transcendent judicial case in Colombia’s recent history. The sentence, which has been filtered shortly before the public reading convened by the magistrate, may be appealed by the defense of Uribe. The lawyer has been in charge of the enormous responsibility this week of giving a ruling in the first instance against the former right -wing, who ruled from 2002 to 2010 and promoted two more presidents in 2010 and 2018. A case that has the country attached to the screen, following long public audiences for more than a year, as if it were the best series in Netflix. On Monday Heredia had announced his ruling, which points to the, in three instances. In other words, Uribe Vélez tried in different ways to make fun of justice, in 2017 and 2018, when his emissaries offered benefits to exparamilitaries to declare his favor in court.
The news is a surprise on two fronts. First, because the penalty imposed by Heredia is substantially greater than the one requested by the Prosecutor’s Office, 9 years. Second, because it will be immediate compliance, without waiting for the conviction to be firm after the appeal process, the usual unless justice see the risk of the defendant from running away. Since the judge had recognized the discipline of Uribe Vélez throughout the trial, the defense argued that it should be released until all legal resources are exhausted. The judge, however, took the toughest position. The filtered text of his sentence asks Uribe Vélez to address his farm in the municipality of Rionegro, in the department of Antioquia. He argued that the visibility and recognition of the former president necessary to limit his freedom “to ensure the preservation of peaceful and harmonic coexistence among citizens.”
“Even when factors underlie the accused, regarding the need for the measure, such as Uribe Vélez has appeared before this stand continuously,” said the judge, also rescued that in the past “systematic dilatory strategies were deployed to prevent the installation of the trial.” In addition, he insists to justify the immediate detention, “we have to highlight, given the occupations that he said, his great international recognition, it is easy to leave the country, to avoid the sanction imposed.”
The image of the former president detained is one that immediately impacts Colombian politics for the 2026 elections, and especially. The favorite senator and presidential candidate in the surveys of that community, was the victim of an attack in early June, and remains in recovery in a clinic in Bogotá. Now the party looks at the legislative and presidential next year without the possibility that its maximum leader and founder can go to the municipalities to campaign. Your militants now consider if the best strategy in the months will be to grab , pointing out a political persecution in justice, a speech that has already had an echo in the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
But this is not the last word. Because it is a ruling in the first instance, the former president has already announced that he will appeal and the case now passes to the Superior Court of Bogotá, which must be pronounced before mid -October so that it does not prescribe. Jurists consulted by the country believe that, although the time is short, the court will give priority to one of the. In addition, they remember that their magistrates have already studied reefs of the case by other appeals throughout the process, which would make it easier for them to make a decision.
Uribe Vélez, on the other hand, said Friday that he did not rule in front of Heredia’s decision because he has been preparing for the judicial career ahead, with sentences and the help of those who have always supported him. , he said on social networks. “You have to think much more about the solution than in the problem. That is why I am in the preparation of the argument to support the appeal of my material defense,” he added.
If the Superior Court of Bogotá keeps the Heredia ruling standing, the defense even has the possibility of continuing to climb its appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice, where, curiously, this story began. The former president had denounced there to the leftist congressman, who pointed out to have links with paramilitary groups, to bribe witnesses to leave against the right -wing president. In 2018, the Supreme Court closed the case against Cepeda and opened it against Uribe Vélez, claiming that it was he who sought to bribe witnesses.
The case of false witnesses could have been investigated there, and save several years of judicial tangles, but Uribe Vélez, anticipating that he would be better in ordinary justice, resigned from his jurisdiction as a senator and the investigation passed to a prosecution directed by an ally, Francisco Barbosa. There began a tortuous path, in which the Prosecutor’s Office asked to close the investigation, but the judges in two instances requested that they continue their way to a trial. Prosecutor Barbosa finished his period, the new prosecutor Luz Adriana Camargo, ternada by President Gustavo Petro, put a new person in charge of the process, and finally the trial was in the hands of Heredia.
The judge proved several evidence and arguments that the Prosecutor’s Office had. He considered as a valid witness that he pointed to several emissaries of Álvaro Uribe Vélez as those who offered him judicial benefits to declare in favor of the former president. Monsalve recorded one of them, to the lawyer of Uribe, Diego Cadena, and also recorded his partner, Dayanira Gómez. The audios, which the defense did not want them to be accepted as valid, were validated by Judge Heredia.
She also took into account conversations intercepted by the Supreme Court between Uribe Vélez and her lawyer chain, central in her ruling against the former president. The defense was arguing that Cadena had offered benefits without knowledge of the president. The judge, according to several appointments, sees that between the two men there is a clear subordination relationship, which congratulated her for doing in prisons what her other lawyers did not do and, she said, “the defendant had no need to draw a plan to Diego Cadena, but to give him a frame.” The mission was clear, Heredia said. The penalty is already announced. The case is no longer at your table.
