Senator Iván Cepeda of the Historic Pact reacted to the decision of the Superior Court of Bogotá, this Tuesday, August 19, to release former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, after learning of the criminal conviction against him in the first instance for the crimes of bribery and procedural fraud.
Cepeda, Uribe's plaintiff in the investigation into false witness tampering, said he accepts the Court's decision, but does not agree with it.
“We, as victims, have always respected and complied with judicial decisions. Of course, we comply with this one, but we do not share it,” Cepeda said. He said he is absolutely certain that “the convicted former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez has been carrying out numerous actions to pressure the courts and campaign against us. And we believe that the measure imposed by Judge Sandra Heredia, in some measure, was to protect us from this type of action.”
Cepeda stated that the appeal will come: "The actions that we will probably take. But with all calm and serenity we say: we respect that decision and we will proceed from our perspective on what we consider pertinent."
The senator said he knows that Álvaro Uribe "is hiring prestigious criminal lawyers to generate a kind of legal opinion contrary to the decisions that have been made, but the undeniable reality is that lawyer Diego Cadena was found guilty of bribery in a criminal proceeding and that bribery was made to benefit Uribe. In other words, Uribe's role as a determinant in relation to bribery in a criminal proceeding was confirmed." The Superior Court of Bogotá overturned Judge Sandra Heredia's decision and allowed the former president to defend himself in the second instance and be free.
Judges Leonel Rogeles, Aura Alexandra Rosero, and Ramiro Riaño upheld the fundamental right to individual liberty of citizen Álvaro Uribe Vélez, as stated in the ruling.
It also “revoked paragraph four of the ruling issued on August 1, 2025, by the 44th Criminal Circuit Court of Bogotá, in that it ordered the immediate deprivation of liberty of citizen Álvaro Uribe Vélez; until such time as the corresponding criminal decision chamber of this Court defines the appeal filed against that first instance determination. Consequently, order that the court in question immediately issue the release order in favor of the guardian,” the criminal decision added. “The judge did not justify any risk of flight; on the contrary,
she accepted the defendant's good behavior during the criminal proceedingsand the amparo claim highlighted that, despite his international occupations that involved his leaving the country on several occasions during the course of those proceedings, he always reported this situation and returned,” it reads.
Nor has there been evidence, the Court added, of the intention to flee by leaving the country, nor of having made any progress in asylum or refugee applications, so there is no objective evidence of evasion. In a state governed by the rule of law,"security measures cannot be based on supposed future risks, merely hypothetical or on conjectures derived from the accused's social recognition, but rather on impartial, current, and verifiable circumstances that make their imposition indispensable to protect the proceedings and/or the victims, regarding whom, when motivating the measure, no specific pronouncement was made."
Likewise, he stated that"the 'delaying strategies' were not explained in the motivation for the arrest, and this complaint established that several of the defensive activities prospered within the framework of tutela actions; therefore, they cannot be interpreted in that sense."
