Verdict in Landmark Case Finds Colombian Ex-President Guilty of Bribery

A district judge found former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe guilty of manipulating witnesses and bribery on Monday, marking the first time in the country’s history that a former head of state has received a criminal conviction. The ruling came at the end of a marathon session lasting close to eleven hours, in which Judge Sandra Heredia scrutinised the details of a murky case that, while focused on procedural wrongdoing, reopened the question of relations between the country’s ruling elites and former right-wing paramilitary forces. Although Uribe could in principle face up to 12 years in prison when he is sentenced on Friday, his legal team said they will appeal; if the case ends up in the Supreme Court, a definitive verdict could take another five years.

Uribe led a major offensive against guerrillas and drug production while at his country’s helm from 2002 to 2010, receiving firm support from Washington and well over $6 billion in aid from the U.S.-backed “Plan Colombia”. The legal case against him dates to 2012, when then congressional deputy Iván Cepeda was investigating links between politicians and the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC). Formed in the 1990s, the AUC claimed its mission was to protect rural landowners against leftist guerrillas. But it quickly turned into another player in a multi-sided conflict, a criminal enterprise and the perpetrator of widespread abuses, becoming responsible for the largest share of victims in Colombia’s war. At the height of their influence in the early 2000s, the paramilitary had close links to 35 per cent of Congress members, as well as dozens of local mayors, governors and councillors. 

Uribe filed a case against Cepeda in the Supreme Court as the legislator was pursuing his investigation, accusing him of cultivating witnesses with the aim of slander. By 2018, however, the direction of accusations flipped. The Supreme Court closed the case against Cepeda and ordered an investigation into whether Uribe, through his lawyers, had paid and pressured jailed former paramilitaries who had spoken about his links with the AUC to change their testimonies. 

The district court heard several intercepted and taped conversations appearing to show lawyers requesting Uribe’s approval to pay and pressure two former paramilitaries, Juan Guillermo Monsalve and Pablo Hernán Sierra. Both men have repeatedly said that Uribe and his brother were aware of and complicit in the formation of AUC fronts, including the infamous Metro Block, which operated in Medellín’s slums. The Uribe siblings, they say, even allowed fighters to resupply at a hacienda owned by their family at the time.

A figure of both public adoration and loathing, Uribe’s return to the limelight has exposed again Colombia’s extreme polarisation. Many see him as the country’s saviour from insurgent and criminal takeover; on social media, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the judiciary of taking part in a political vendetta. Others celebrated a landmark in efforts to punish elite complicit in empowering the deadly paramilitary forces responsible for some of the worst horrors of the war.