After the reading of the sentence, which imposed a 12-year sentence of house arrest and a ban from holding public office, former President Álvaro Uribe requested the floor to immediately file his appeal on the material defense.

The former president included a reproach to the judge for the objections made against his children, whom he accused of having leaked the decision that convicted him. The former president warned that this demonstrates that an impeachment trial was being carried out against him and that all the actions were outside the law.

“He made those payments autonomously… about which Dr. Cadena told me nothing,” former President Álvaro Uribe stated in his appeal. https://t.co/if1kX8q65f

— Revista Semana (@RevistaSemana) August 1, 2025

Regarding the central points of the sentence, he pointed out that the payments supposedly offered by lawyer Diego Cadena to the witnesses were never known to him and that the money and all the actions were autonomous decisions of the former president's then defender.

He insisted that the arguments presented in the sentence are not sufficient to convict him, since the witnesses have reiterated that they have no knowledge of where the money that was delivered came from or that the orders were given by the former president, however, the judge's interpretation was based on his responsibility.

“There is no legal reason to convict me on the argument that I would have authorized payments to witnesses by Dr. Cadena, he made those payments autonomously, electronically and with traceability, now we are going to refer to the alleged cash payments, about which Dr. Cadena told me nothing, about which I had no information, nor later,” said the former president.

The former president even asserted that the legally relevant facts, which are part of the ruling and which point to the alleged delivery of money to witnesses, occurred almost a year after attorney Diego Cadena stopped providing defense services to the former president, a sufficient argument to rule out such liability.

“This is very different from the destruction of the country that occurred in 2019 and 2021, with that movement encouraged by the current president when he was in the opposition, which led to the destruction of a large part of Colombia. Ours is a position of thesis, of frankness. To point out that they have to restrict my freedom to avoid violence is to point out that I am encouraging violence,” Uribe said.

The former president's defense team requested an extension to file an appeal against the sentence, which stretched to more than 1,100 pages and will be heard in the Superior Court of Bogotá, as a second instance in which they hope to overturn the conviction for the two crimes charged.

Former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez questions the elimination of conversations between Senator Iván Cepeda and former paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve. https://t.co/if1kX8q65f — Revista Semana (@RevistaSemana) August 1, 2025

The defense also criticized the judge's decision to order house arrest, given the circumstances of the case, even though the ruling has not yet been finalized. This has been taken into account in other cases, considering the presumption of innocence and the defendant's right to attend trial.