A court docket in Colombia has overturned ex-President Alvaro Uribe’s convictions for fraud and bribery, setting the stage for additional appeals within the carefully watched case.
On Tuesday, two magistrates on a panel of three voted to toss the decision in opposition to the 73-year-old Uribe, arguing that there have been “structural deficiencies” within the earlier ruling, together with inadequate proof.
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Uribe’s conviction had marked the primary time in Colombia’s historical past {that a} former president was convicted of a criminal offense and sentenced.
A right-wing politician who ruled as president from 2002 to 2010, Uribe was discovered responsible in July of asking paramilitary members to lie about alleged hyperlinks to him.
Uribe has lengthy maintained his innocence. However Tuesday’s choice has prompted an outpouring of opposition from those that imagine it displays a lax angle in the direction of right-wing abuses.
“That is how the historical past of paramilitary governance in Colombia is roofed up,” Gustavo Petro, the nation’s present president, wrote on social media. “That’s, the historical past of the politicians who got here to energy allied with drug trafficking and who unleashed the genocide in Colombia.”
Uribe had been sentenced in August to 12 years of home arrest, a effective of $578,000 and a ban from serving in public workplace for 100 months and 20 days — or simply greater than eight years.
Senator Ivan Cepeda, one of many central figures within the Uribe case, has already introduced he plans to problem the magistrates’ choice.
“We’ll file an enchantment for cassation earlier than the Supreme Courtroom of Justice,” Cepeda wrote on social media.
Suspected ties to paramilitaries
Tuesday’s ruling was the most recent chapter in a years-long case that has exacerbated political divides in Colombia.
Uribe is a controversial chief within the South American nation, which has struggled with greater than six many years of inner battle between authorities forces, left-wing rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and prison networks.
Throughout his time in workplace, Uribe unleashed an iron-fisted army offensive in opposition to the nation’s left-wing insurgent teams.
Critics have accused his authorities of turning a blind eye to massacres that unfolded within the course of — and, in some circumstances, encouraging troopers to homicide civilians to artificially boost the variety of rebels killed.
Uribe’s ties to right-wing paramilitaries earlier than his time as president have additionally come underneath scrutiny.
In 2012, Senator Cepeda had launched a probe into the ex-president’s alleged connections with paramilitaries just like the Bloque Metro, notably throughout his ascent to political energy within the Nineties.
Uribe responded with a libel criticism in opposition to Cepeda, accusing the left-wing senator of manipulating paramilitary members to be witnesses.
However when the case reached the Supreme Courtroom in 2018, its judges got here to a shock choice. It tossed the case in opposition to Cepeda and as a substitute referred to as for an investigation into Uribe on the identical cost, witness tampering.
Uribe admitted he had despatched his attorneys to go to paramilitary members in jail, however he denied conspiring to coax the three witnesses into altering their testimony, as had been alleged.
In July, Choose Sandra Liliana Heredia ruled there was sufficient proof to find out that Uribe had conspired with a lawyer to control the witnesses. Her ruling was overturned in Tuesday’s choice.
Affect on Colombia’s election
What occurs subsequent within the case may weigh closely on Colombia’s upcoming presidential election, slated to unfold in Could 2026. Uribe stays a preferred determine in Colombian politics.
His case has additionally caught the eye of United States President Donald Trump, whose administration has been supportive of right-wing leaders going through prosecution in Latin America.
Trump has repeatedly accused the judicial system, each within the US and in Latin America, of bias in opposition to conservative voices.
“Uribe’s solely crime has been to tirelessly battle and defend his homeland. The weaponisation of Colombia’s judicial department by radical judges has now set a worrisome precedent,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X earlier this 12 months, after Uribe was discovered responsible.
Petro, the nation’s first left-wing president, is term-limited and won’t be able to run within the 2026 race.
In a social media put up, Petro speculated that Tuesday’s choice would create pathways for Trump to extend his affect in Colombia, by allying with Uribe’s supporters.
Petro has been feuding with the Trump administration over tariffs and variations over insurance policies to fight illicit medication.
“Now Trump, allied with these politicians and with Uribe, will search sanctions in opposition to the president who denounced in his life the alliances between Colombian political energy and paramilitary drug trafficking in Colombia, and he does so with the assistance of those that helped paramilitarism within the nation,” Petro posted on X.
Uribe’s social gathering, Democratic Heart, has already mentioned that Uribe will run for senator if his authorized state of affairs permits it.
Al Jazeera correspondent Alessandro Rampietti additionally famous that Senator Cepeda has signalled his candidacy for president within the upcoming race.
“There’s little doubt that it will change or can have huge repercussions within the upcoming election marketing campaign within the nation, but in addition, this isn’t the final phrase,” Rampietti defined from Bogota.
“We will anticipate the victims of this case to enchantment to the Supreme Courtroom, and the Supreme Courtroom can have in all probability 5 years to make a ultimate choice.”
