Former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) was sentenced to 12 years in prison this Friday (1st) by the Colombian court.
The sentence was announced after the conservative politician was sentenced at first instance last Monday (28) for crimes of procedural fraud and witness bribe.
According to information from the newspaper El Tiempo, Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia of the 44th Bogota Criminal Court stipulated a sentence higher than the prosecutor (nine years in prison).
The penalty also includes a fine equivalent to 2,420 minimum wages and disqualification for the exercise of public office for eight years. Heredia ordered the immediate transfer of Uribe to Rionegro, where he has a farm to serve house arrest.
“Based on the jurisprudential criteria and knowing that Álvaro Uribe Vélez deserves house arrest, it should be noted that the accused must begin the execution of the sentence before the final judgment of the decision, because the nominal requirements of need are exceeded,” the judge said in the sentence.
The defense of the former president announced that he will appeal the judgment and the case will then be referred to the Bogota Superior Court, said El Tiemppo.
Uribe was tried in a case where he was accused of manipulating witnesses to change his statement in his favor in a lawsuit that opposed him to left -wing senator Iván Cepeda.
The former conservative president claimed during the process that the trial was a “revenge” on the left against him. Uribe was defended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after his conviction was announced on Monday.
“The only crime of former Colombian president Uribe was to fight and tirelessly defend his homeland. The instrumentalization of the Colombian judiciary by radical judges opened a worrying precedent,” Rubio wrote in X.
Uribe’s judgment was announced on Friday a few hours after the former president’s defense reported that he filed a criminal complaint to the Commission for Investigation and Accusation of the Chamber of Representatives against the current ruler of the country, Gustavo Petro, for “fustigation and slander.”
“The facts that motivate this criminal action derive from a series of public demonstrations given by the Head of State on July 28 and 29, 2025, through his official account on social network X, with a hearing of more than 8 million followers,” said the law firm representing Uribe.
According to the lawyers, “President Petro issued direct, unfounded accusations and without judicial support, attributing to former President Uribe severely criminal conduct, such as homicides, drug trafficking, paramilitation and corruption, facts for which there is no criminal conviction or judicial decision.”
In one of several messages published by Petro on the trial after the conviction, the president claimed that Uribe “did not fight paramilitary terrorism, but rather joined him several times.”
