Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) was found guilty on Monday of bribing witnesses in criminal proceedings, becoming the first president to be convicted in the country.

Bogotá's 44th Criminal Court Judge, Sandra Liliana Heredia Aranda, announced in a six-hour hearing that Uribe is guilty of bribery in criminal proceedings when, through his lawyer, Diego Cadena, he attempted to bribe, among others, former paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve.

"The first bribe in a criminal case involving punishable material was proven," the judge stated during the reading of the ruling.

Heredia alleged that the founder and honorary president of the conservative political party Centro Democrático offered benefits, through emissaries, to incarcerated individuals for his own benefit in several open cases. He also alleged that he manipulated witnesses to link Senator Iván Cepeda to illegal acts.

However, it remains to be seen whether he is guilty or innocent of the other crimes he was accused of by the prosecution: procedural fraud and bribery, as well as a possible conviction.

The case began in 2012 when Uribe filed a complaint against Senator Iván Cepeda, claiming that the latter had toured the country's prisons to present false testimony against him about the rise of paramilitarism in the Antioquia region.

However, after the evidence was presented, several versions indicated that the former president's lawyers were trying to manipulate witnesses to point the finger at Cepeda, so the latter went from being accused to being a victim, unlike Uribe, the plaintiff, who became a suspect.