U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio questioned the guilty verdict against former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, saying it sets a “worrying precedent.”
"Former Colombian President Uribe's only crime has been to fight tirelessly and defend his homeland. The instrumentalization of the Colombian judiciary by radical judges has set a worrying precedent," the US Foreign Minister said on his X account.
Rubio's statements came hours after Judge Sandra Heredia of the 44th Criminal Circuit Court of Bogotá declared that bribery had been proven in the investigation against Uribe.
The judge explained that the punishable conduct was proven by contacts between lawyer Diego Cadena, Uribe's representative, and former paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve, who is currently incarcerated in a Bogotá jail. According to the judge, a campaign was launched to force Monsalve to"lie before the Supreme Court of Justice and deny what he had said" about the alleged ties between Uribe and his brother Santiago and paramilitary groups. Furthermore, Monsalve was to maintain that his previous statements were the result of alleged manipulation by Senator Iván Cepeda Castro, who, according to the version presented, obtained the testimony under promises of prison benefits.
The judicial process began in 2012, when Uribe filed a complaint against Senator Cepeda before the Supreme Court for alleged witness tampering, at a time when the congressman was preparing a complaint in the Senate against the former president for alleged links to paramilitaries. Judge José Luis Barceló, the judge in charge of the case, decided not to investigate Cepeda and instead opened a case against Uribe for alleged witness tampering.
During the hearing, the judge accepted as evidence the wiretaps of the former president and the recordings made with a spy watch by Monsalve in La Picota prison. Uribe's defense team had requested the exclusion of this evidence, considering it illegal, but the judge held that"the evidentiary debate does not fall exclusively on the tape recordings submitted at trial. However, their legality was verified, elucidating the aspects related to their acquisition, for which they were not used by illicit methods (...) these video recordings were not obtained in violation of the right to privacy nor were they made in bad faith." The judge also emphasized that withholding the recording from the interlocutor does not constitute criminal conduct.
Monsalve, the main witness in the case, was a member of the Metro Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and is the son of the administrator of the Guacharacas ranch, owned by the Uribe family. In his testimony before the Supreme Court, Monsalve stated that the Metro Bloc was founded on that ranch between 1996 and 1997, with the participation of several individuals, including the Uribe Vélez brothers. According to his testimony, massacres were planned on that ranch and subsequently carried out by paramilitary squads, accusations that Uribe and his defense team have consistently denied.
The judge held that"it is clear that the accused knew about the plan being hatched: to ambush Monsalve" to induce him to change his testimony in court. However, to date, the judge has not determined whether the former president is responsible for this crime as an instigator.
