Impact and rejection in Colombia for the acquittal of Álvaro Uribe by the Superior Court of Bogotá
Internet
Published at: 21/10/2025 06:59 PM
The Bogotá High Court overturned the first-instance conviction imposed on former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, acquitting him of the crimes of bribery in criminal proceedings and procedural fraud, and for this reason various sectors of Colombian society accuse and interpret this decision as a reflection of the influence of the political elite over the country's judicial system.
Uribe, 73, was initially sentenced to 12 years of house imprisonment, a fine of 3,444 million pesos (approximately $830,000 USD), and 100 months of disqualification from holding public office, international media reports.
The sentence was read by Judge Manuel Antonio Merchán, who argues that it was not possible to establish the “necessary malicious link” to hold Uribe responsible as a determiner of punishable conduct. The central case of the trial related to key witness Carlos Enrique Vélez Ramírez.
The Court concluded that the judgment in the first instance committed an “error” and alleges a “biased assessment of evidence”. Therefore, the final decision was that “responsibility was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt” and, as a result, the conviction was revoked.
The acquittal was immediately described by international analysts as a “tailor-made ruling, tailored to the sentenced person”, which echoes the perception of impunity.
This ruling comes after, last August, a court granted provisional release to the former president. The process originated from testimonies presented by Senator Iván Cepeda, involving former paramilitaries Juan Guillermo Monsalve and Pablo Hernán Sierra, who claimed to have met with Uribe during his term as governor of Antioquia.
For his part, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, emphasized that “the Bogotá high court repeats history, contradicts the Supreme Court of Justice, and affirms that the judicial interception of a criminal by a Supreme Court magistrate, in which Uribe's voice appears talking about bribes, is privacy.”
In his account on the social network X, he criticized that “this is how the history of paramilitary governance in Colombia is covered up, that is, the story of the politicians who came to power allied with drug trafficking and who unleashed the genocide in Colombia.”
“Now Trump, allied with these politicians and Uribe, will seek sanction against the president he denounced in his life, the alliances between Colombian political power and paramilitary drug trafficking in Colombia, and he does so with the help of those who helped paramilitarism in the country,” he said.
The president summoned the Colombian people, “I wait for you in the Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá this Friday to begin collecting the signatures of the constituent power.”
Mazo News Team