Former president Alvaro Uribe Velez is questioned during the final day of a four-day hearing in Bogota, Colombia on May 8.
Former Colombian President Uribe was found guilty of bribing a public officer and abusing the legal system.
Alvaro Uribe, the first former president of Colombia to be found guilty at trial, was found guilty on Monday by a Colombian judge of bribing a public official and abusing the legal system in a lengthy case involving witness tampering.
Over the course of around 10 hours, Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia read her ruling out loud to the court. A related bribery case against the right-wing politician was dismissed by her.
Uribe is anticipated to appeal the verdict, which is the most recent in a highly politicized dispute that has lasted for around 13 years.
Less than a year before Colombia's 2026 presidential election, in which a number of Uribe's supporters and protégés are running for the nation's top job, the decision was made.
Uribe, 73, and his allies claim he is innocent and that the procedure is a form of persecution. His critics have hailed it as the well-earned fall from grace of a guy who has been repeatedly accused of having intimate ties to dangerous right-wing paramilitaries but has never been found guilty of a crime.
The jail term for each charge ranges from six to twelve years. At a subsequent hearing, Heredia is anticipated to sentence Uribe.
After telling the court Monday morning that "justice does not grovel before power," Heredia spent around nine hours reading her ruling. "The Colombian people are the ones who benefit from it."
She stated that her entire ruling is over 1,000 pages long and that "we want to announce to Colombia that justice has arrived."
A lawyer named Jaime Lombana attended the court in person, while Uribe and one of his attorneys, Jaime Granados, participated by video link
Juan Felipe Amaya, a member of Uribe's legal team, told reporters at the court, "This is not the end of this process; the appeal is next and we are going to establish that this decision, which we respect, is wrong."
Granados requested that Uribe stay free for the duration of the proceedings and informed the panel that the presumption of his innocence should be upheld.
Outside the court, the former president's friends and detractors gathered, some of whom were wearing masks of his face.
Even if the conviction is eventually upheld, Uribe may be allowed to serve his sentence on house arrest because of his age.
A scheme in parliament
Uribe, who led a military campaign against Marxist guerrilla organizations while serving as president from 2002 to 2010, was under investigation with a number of his associates for allegedly tampering with witnesses to refute claims that he had connections to paramilitaries.
Uribe claimed in 2012 that leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda had planned to link him to paramilitaries, and judges have twice denied prosecutors' attempts to put the matter on hold.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that Cepeda had not bribed or coerced former paramilitaries, but rather had gathered information from former combatants as part of his job. Rather, the court ruled that witnesses were under pressure from Uribe and his supporters.
Cepeda and his attorney were present at the hearing.
Prior to the judge's ruling, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio harshly criticized Uribe's trial. Throughout his two tenure as president, Uribe maintained a close relationship with the United States.
"Uribe's unwavering battle and defense of his motherland has been his only transgression. A concerning precedent has now been set by extremist justices using Colombia's judiciary as a weapon, Rubio stated on X.
In reference to a proposal by US Republican lawmaker Mario Diaz-Balart to reduce non-military aid to Colombia next year, partially due to concerns of due process violations in the Uribe case, Banco de Bogota wrote in a note on Monday that "a decision against the ex-president could generate some kind of retaliation by the government of the United States."
Uribe, the leader of the influential Democratic Center party and a former senator for years before and after his president, was under house arrest for two months in 2020.
He has made it clear time and time again that he sent paramilitary leaders to the US.
More than 205,000 individuals were killed by paramilitary organizations that demobilized under agreements with Uribe's government, according to Colombia's truth commission. This is almost half of the 450,000 deaths that have been reported during the ongoing civil war.
Forced disappearances, sexual violence, displacement, and other atrocities were also perpetrated by paramilitaries, guerrilla organizations, and military personnel.
Uribe joins a number of Latin American politicians who have been found guilty and occasionally imprisoned, such as Ricardo Martinelli of Panama, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Cristina Fernandez of Argentina, Alberto Fujimori of Peru, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil.
