The defense of Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe said Tuesday it would not appeal a Supreme Court decision to place the controversial politician under house arrest, claiming this would “facilitate its legitimacy.”
In a press release, Uribe’s defense attorney Jaime Granados summed up a number of alleged violations of the former president’s rights, but said that challenging the court’s “injustice” would be “naive.”
An appeal would possibly also be futile as the Supreme Court unanimously ordered Uribe’s house arrest last week in a 1,554-page ruling in which the high court also formally filed fraud and bribery charges and accused the former president of obstructing justice.
The Inspector General’s Office, which serves as guarantor for a fair trial, said it had no legal arguments to appeal the decision.
How Colombia’s former president ended up with one foot in prison
The house arrest of President Ivan Duque’s political patron and the leader of his far-right Democratic Center party is unprecedented and triggered a government crisis.
Uribe’s party has tried to mobilize its base in its latest attempt to generate public pressure, but failed.
According to the organizers’ own calculations, some 1,000 vehicles took part in the “Great Caravan for Uribe” from Medellin, the former president’s hometown, to his estate in the nearby Rionegro municipality on Monday.
Local media, however, said “dozens” took part in this protest in support of Uribe, a former Medellin Cartel associate, whose popularity has been waning for years.
Duque has reiterated his disagreement with the decision and has promoted the necessity of a judicial reform, but both Uribe’s legal defense and the president seem unable to do anything beyond expressing their opinion.
The once-almighty former president has remained silent on Twitter, Uribe’s favorite media outlet, since Thursday last week as this could violate the conditions of the former president’s house arrest and result in Uribe being sent to jail.
The Supreme Court has been investigating the former president since 2018 for allegedly trying to manipulate witnesses who have testified the Uribe family helped found paramilitary death squads in the 1990s.