The World Today
The former president assures that "every minute of my freedom I will dedicate to the freedom" of the Latin American country.
MADRID, 20 (EUROPA PRESS)
The Bogotá Superior Court on Tuesday ordered the immediate release of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has been serving a 12-year sentence of house arrest since early August after being found guilty of witness bribery and procedural fraud.
This was announced by the Criminal Chamber of this court in a 38-page document ordering Judge Sandra Heredia to revoke the deprivation of liberty she imposed on the former president "until (...) this Court decides on the appeal filed against this first-instance decision."
The court has decided to "protect Uribe's fundamental right to individual liberty," while questioning the allegations on which the judge requested his immediate arrest when sentencing him to twelve years in prison, describing these criteria as "vague, indeterminate, and imprecise, such as public perception, exemplary effect, peaceful coexistence, and social order, which are inappropriate because the nature of the conduct alleged apparently affected specific individuals, not the social conglomerate in the abstract."
"This type of reasoning ignores the principle of equality before the law and the criterion of proportionality, prioritizing generic and symbolic ends over fundamental rights such as the restriction of liberty. This is also disproportionate given that the presumption of innocence prevails until the conviction becomes final," he added.
The court also criticized Heredia for "insisting in emphasizing the public recognition of the accused," arguing that he "should only be held accountable for what he did or failed to do, not for his personality, ideas, or characteristics, which the justice official used as a criterion for his perceived dangerousness, which is subjective."
Uribe reacted with a brief message on his social media account X, where he thanked "God (and) so many compatriots for their expressions of solidarity," and assured that "every minute of my freedom I will dedicate to the freedom of Colombia."
In addition to house arrest, the former president has been sentenced to a ban from public office for more than eight years and ordered to pay a fine of more than 3.444 billion pesos, equivalent to 2,420 minimum wages (approximately 720,700 euros).
The judge considers that the 73-year-old former president, who has consistently denied the facts and claimed to be the victim of political persecution, instigated emissaries to manipulate witnesses in the country's prisons in order to benefit himself with their testimony. According to the investigation, lawyer Diego Cadena allegedly attempted to offer benefits to several former paramilitaries to change their story about alleged ties between the former president and his brother, Santiago Uribe, and paramilitaries.
The case began in 2012, when Uribe filed a complaint against Senator Iván Cepeda, claiming that the latter had toured the country's prisons to present false testimony against him about the rise of paramilitarism in the Antioquia region.
However, after the evidence was presented, several versions indicated that the former president's lawyers were trying to manipulate witnesses to point the finger at Cepeda, so the latter went from being accused to being a victim, unlike Uribe, the plaintiff, who became a suspect.
