The ruling, which Uribe’s authorized staff stated he’ll attraction, is the harmony resolution in a long-running, massively politicised case.
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been discovered responsible of witness tampering and bribery in a landmark trial, changing into the nation’s first ex-president to ever be discovered responsible at trial.
Decide Sandra Liliana Heredia dominated on Monday that there was sufficient proof to find out that Uribe, 73, conspired with a lawyer to coax three former members of paramilitary teams who have been in jail into altering testimony that they had offered to Ivan Cepeda, a left-wing senator who had launched an investigation into Uribe’s alleged ties to a paramilitary group within the Nineteen Nineties.
The case dates to 2012, when Uribe filed a libel go well with towards Cepeda with the Supreme Courtroom. However in a twist, the excessive court docket dismissed the costs towards Cepeda and commenced investigating Uribe in 2018.
Uribe faces as much as 12 years in jail, however a sentencing shall be delivered in a separate listening to on Friday. He’s anticipated to attraction the ruling.
Uribe’s critics have celebrated his trial because the deserved downfall of a person repeatedly accused of shut relationships with violent right-wing paramilitaries, however by no means convicted of any crime.
The previous chief, 73, and his supporters say the method is a persecution and that he’s harmless.
Uribe and one in every of his legal professionals, Jaime Granados, joined the listening to by way of videolink, whereas one other lawyer, Jaime Lombana, appeared in individual.
“This isn’t the tip of this course of, the attraction is subsequent and we’re going to reveal that this resolution, which we respect, is fallacious,” lawyer Juan Felipe Amaya, a part of Uribe’s authorized staff, instructed journalists on the court docket.
Granados instructed the listening to that the presumption of Uribe’s innocence needs to be maintained and requested for him to stay free in the course of the the rest of the method.
Each detractors and supporters gathered exterior the court docket, with some Uribe backers sporting masks of his face.
Even when the conviction is ultimately upheld, Uribe could also be allowed to serve his ultimate sentence on home arrest due to his age.
Uribe’s trial triggered criticism from United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Uribe had an in depth relationship with the US throughout his two phrases as president between 2002 and 2010, as right-wing governments in Latin America have typically had.
“Uribe’s solely crime has been to tirelessly combat and defend his homeland. The weaponisation of Colombia’s judicial department by radical judges has now set a worrisome precedent,” Rubio stated on X.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a leftist, defended the ruling, writing on X that “a robust justice system” will allow Colombia to emerge from violence. He added in one other message that Rubio was interfering with Colombia’s sovereignty.
“A call towards the ex-president might generate some form of reprisal by the federal government of the USA,” Banco de Bogota stated in a observe on Monday, referring to a proposal by US Republican lawmaker Mario Diaz-Balart to chop non-military assist to Colombia subsequent 12 months, partly on considerations of due course of violations within the Uribe case.
Uribe, who was positioned beneath house arrest for 2 months in 2020, is head of the highly effective Democratic Centre get together and was a senator for years each earlier than and after his presidency.
He has repeatedly emphasised that he extradited paramilitary leaders to the US.
Colombia’s fact fee says paramilitary teams, which demobilised beneath offers with Uribe’s authorities, killed greater than 205,000 folks, almost half of the 450,000 deaths recorded in the course of the ongoing civil battle.
In latest a long time, right-wing paramilitary teams throughout Latin America – backed by the US – together with the armed forces of allied governments, have been accountable not just for killings, but in addition for compelled disappearances, sexual violence, mass displacement, and different grave human rights abuses.