Colombian former President Álvaro Uribe is sentenced to 12 years home arrest for bribery

Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe was sentenced Friday (August 1, 2025) to 12 years of home arrest for witness tampering and bribery in a historic case that gripped the South American nation and tarnished the conservative strongman’s legacy.

The sentence, which Uribe stated will likely be appealed, adopted an almost six-month trial wherein prosecutors introduced proof that he tried to affect witnesses who accused the law-and-order chief of getting hyperlinks to a paramilitary group within the Nineties.

“Politics prevailed over the regulation in sentencing,” Uribe stated after Friday’s listening to.

Uribe, 73, has denied any wrongdoing. He confronted as much as 12 years in jail after being convicted Monday.

His legal professional had requested the court docket to permit Uribe to stay free whereas he appeals the decision. Judge Sandra Heredia on Friday stated she didn’t grant the protection’s request as a result of it might be “straightforward” for the previous President to depart the nation to “evade the imposed sanction.” Heredia additionally banned Uribe from holding public workplace for eight years and fined him about $776,000.

Ahead of Friday’s sentencing, Uribe posted on X that he was getting ready arguments to assist his attraction. He added that one should “assume rather more concerning the resolution than the issue” throughout private crises.

The appeals court docket may have till early October to subject a ruling, which both social gathering may then problem earlier than Colombia’s Supreme Court.

The former President ruled from 2002 to 2010 with robust assist from the United States. He is a polarising determine in Colombia, the place many credit score him for saving the nation from changing into a failed state, whereas others affiliate him with human rights violations and the rise of paramilitary teams within the Nineties.

Heredia on Monday stated she had seen sufficient proof to find out that Uribe conspired with a lawyer to coax three former paramilitary group members, who have been in jail, into altering testimony they’d offered to Ivan Cepeda, a leftist senator who had launched an investigation into Uribe’s alleged ties to a paramilitary group.

Uribe in 2012 filed a libel go well with towards Cepeda within the Supreme Court. But in a twist, the excessive court docket in 2018 dismissed the accusations towards Cepeda and commenced investigating Uribe.

Martha Peñuela Rosales, a supporter of Uribe’s social gathering within the capital, Bogota, stated she wept and prayed after listening to of the sentence. “It’s an unjust sentence. He deserves to be free,” she stated.

Meanwhile, Sergio Andrés Parra, who protested towards Uribe exterior the courthouse, stated the 12-year sentence “is sufficient” and, even when the previous President appeals, “historical past has already condemned him.” During Uribe’s Presidency, Colombia’s navy attained a few of its largest battlefield victories towards Latin America’s oldest leftist insurgency, pushing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia into distant pockets and forcing the group’s management into peace talks that led to the disarmament of greater than 13,000 fighters in 2016.