A Bogota judge on Monday found Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe guilty of bribing witnesses and filing fraudulent charges.
In a historic verdict, judge Sandra Liliana Herrera confirmed that Uribe bribed witnesses in order to press fabricated criminal charges against Senator Ivan Cepeda.
The prosecution failed to prove that Uribe bribed a witness to fabricate claims that Justice Minister Eduardo Montealegre illegally opened investigations into the former president and his brother Santiago when Montealegre was Prosecutor General.
As Montesquieu rightly said, the law must be like death, which spares no one. May this act be a reaffirmation of the supreme value of justice in a free society, and may the judgment to be announced, regardless of its content, be understood not as a political ruling, but as an act of legal coherence, ethical responsibility, and commitment to the truth.
Judge Sandra Liliana Herrera
Cepeda pressed criminal charges against Uribe in 2011 based on the testimonies of two former members of the paramilitary organization AUC.
The witnesses, Pablo Hernan Sierra and Juan Guillermo Monsalve, testified that the Uribe brothers and their mafia associates helped create the precursor of the Bloque Metro paramilitary group in 1996.
The violence that Uribe tried to cover up with fraud and bribery
Montealegre additionally reopened investigations into Santiago’s alleged role in leading the 12 Apostles death squad between 1992 and 1996.
In a response, Uribe pressed charges against Cepeda before the Supreme Court, claiming that the senator had bribed Sierra and Monsalve as part of a wider conspiracy to persecute the former president and his brother.
While this investigation was ongoing, Monsalve survived two assassination attempts. A second witness was assassinated.
The Supreme Court absolved Cepeda in 2018 and opened a criminal investigation into Uribe after finding evidence that the former president was the one who had been manipulating witnesses.
In an attempt to obstruct this investigation, the former president and multiple fixers, including National Electoral Council president Alvaro Hernan Prada, stepped up their bribery practices and recruited more than a dozen false witnesses.
This conspiracy mainly sought to convince Monsalve to retract his accusations regarding the Uribe brothers’ alleged role in the creation of the Bloque Metro.
Other witnesses received payments to discredit Sierra as a witness against Uribe.
The court found out about this through wiretaps, surveillance videos and the testimony of one witness who turned on Uribe.
In a desperate attempt to end the Supreme Court investigation, the former president resigned from Congress, effectively renouncing his congressional immunity.
Consequently, the investigation was pushed to the Prosecutor General’s Office and ended on Herrera’s desk last year.
The judge found Uribe guilty after months of hearings that began in February of this year.
The judge said that she will announce the sentence on Friday. Until then, Uribe will remain in liberty.
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