Colombian ex-President Álvaro Uribe is sentenced to 12 years house arrest for bribery

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe was sentenced Friday to 12 years of house 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 said will be appealed, followed a nearly six-month trial in which prosecutors presented evidence that he attempted to influence witnesses who accused the law-and-order leader of having links to a paramilitary group in the 1990s.

“Politics prevailed over the law in sentencing,” Uribe said after Friday’s hearing.

Uribe, 73, has denied any wrongdoing. He faced up to 12 years in prison after being convicted Monday.

His attorney had asked the court to allow Uribe to remain free while he appeals the verdict. Judge Sandra Heredia on Friday said she did not grant the defense’s request because it would be “easy” for the former president to leave the country to “evade the imposed sanction.”

Heredia also banned Uribe from holding public office for eight years and fined him about $776,000.

Ahead of Friday’s sentencing, Uribe posted on X that he was preparing arguments to support his appeal. He added that one must “think much more about the solution than the problem” during personal crises.

The appeals court will have until early October to issue a ruling, which either party could then challenge before Colombia’s Supreme Court.

The former president governed from 2002 to 2010 with strong support from the United States. He is a polarizing figure in Colombia, where many credit him for saving the country from becoming a failed state, while others associate him with human rights violations and the rise of paramilitary groups in the 1990s.

Heredia on Monday said she had seen enough evidence to determine that Uribe conspired with a lawyer to coax three former paramilitary group members, who were in prison, into changing testimony they had provided 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 suit against Cepeda in the Supreme Court. But in a twist, the high court in 2018 dismissed the accusations against Cepeda and began investigating Uribe.

Martha Peñuela Rosales, a supporter of Uribe’s party in the capital, Bogota, said she wept and prayed after hearing of the sentence. “It’s an unjust sentence. He deserves to be free,” she said.

Meanwhile, Sergio Andrés Parra, who protested against Uribe outside the courthouse, said the 12-year sentence “is enough” and, even if the former president appeals, “history has already condemned him.”

During Uribe’s presidency, Colombia’s military attained some of its biggest battlefield victories against Latin America’s oldest leftist insurgency, pushing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia into remote pockets and forcing the group’s leadership into peace talks that led to the disarmament of more than 13,000 fighters in 2016.

Astrid Suarez, The Associated Press