Colombia Convicts Former President Uribe for Bribery and Witness Tampering

A Colombian court Monday found Former President Álvaro Uribe guilty of witness-tampering and bribery of a public official, making him Colombia’s first former president to be convicted of a crime, in a landmark trial that has gripped the country, the Associated Press reported. 

After a nearly six-month-long trial, in which more than 90 witnesses testified, Uribe was convicted of attempting to sway witnesses who accused him of connections to a paramilitary group established by ranchers in the 1990s. 

Uribe, 73, attended the trial virtually. He faces up to 12 years in prison.  

He is likely to appeal the ruling and was seen shaking his head while the judge read her verdict, according to Agence France-Presse. 

Uribe, who served as president from 2002 to 2010, is a polarizing figure in Colombia, and the trial was highly politicized, observers said.  

Many credit Uribe with preventing Colombia from becoming a failed state, while others accuse him of human rights violations and the rise of paramilitary groups in the 1990s. 

After the verdict was read, clashes erupted outside the courthouse between Uribe’s opponents and supporters. 

Uribe’s case dates back to 2012, when he filed a libel complaint with the Supreme Court against left-wing senator Iván Cepeda, who had accused him of involvement with right-wing paramilitary groups that were deeply involved in Colombia’s longstanding conflict between government forces, guerrillas, and paramilitaries. 

The court, however, did not prosecute Cepeda and instead turned its focus on Uribe in 2018.

Paramilitary groups in Colombia began forming in the 1980s as a response to Marxist guerrillas, who had been fighting the government in the 1960s, saying they were trying to end poverty and political exclusion in rural areas. 

The armed groups, profiting off of drug and human trafficking, have been fighting each other in a deadly war that has led to spiraling levels of violence in the country. 

Uribe, a right-wing politician, led a military campaign against drug cartels and the FARC guerrilla army, which signed a peace deal in 2016 with Uribe’s successor, Juan Manuel Santos.