Bogotá, Colombia — In a historic ruling that has shaken Colombia’s political landscape, former President Álvaro Uribe was sentenced Friday to 12 years of house arrest for witness tampering and procedural fraud, becoming the first ex-head of state in the country’s history to be criminally convicted.
Judge Sandra Heredia handed down the sentence following a six-month trial that revealed Uribe’s attempts to manipulate testimony related to his alleged ties to far-right paramilitary groups during his tenure as governor of Antioquia in the 1990s.
Uribe, 73, was found guilty of conspiring with his legal team to pressure imprisoned paramilitary members into retracting or altering statements that implicated him. The court also imposed a $776,000 fine and an eight-year ban from holding public office.
Heredia denied Uribe’s request to remain free during appeal, citing the risk of flight. “It would be easy for the former president to leave the country to evade the imposed sanction,” she said.
Uribe has vowed to appeal, calling the case “political persecution” and asserting his innocence. His legal team must file the appeal before mid-October to avoid the case becoming time-barred under Colombian law.
Uribe governed Colombia from 2002 to 2010, a period marked by aggressive military campaigns against leftist guerrilla groups, particularly the FARC. While credited by some for restoring national security, his presidency was also marred by the “false positives” scandal, in which thousands of civilians were murdered by the military and falsely labeled as enemy combatants to inflate kill counts and earn rewards.
The current conviction stems from a reversal of a 2012 libel case Uribe filed against leftist Senator Iván Cepeda, who had investigated Uribe’s paramilitary ties. In 2018, Colombia’s Supreme Court dismissed Uribe’s complaint and instead launched an investigation into his own conduct.
Uribe, once a close ally of the United States, remains a polarizing figure. While some Colombian conservatives view him as a national savior, critics see the conviction as long-overdue accountability for abuses committed under his leadership.
The ruling comes less than a year before Colombia’s 2026 presidential elections, adding political weight to an already volatile moment in the country’s history.
