Colombia: The Office of the Inspector General calls for overturning former President Uribe’s conviction, saying it is “based on conjecture and not on solid evidence”

The Colombian Office of the Inspector General, a body that acts as an independent watchdog, filed an appeal Monday to overturn the 12-year house arrest sentence against former president Álvaro Uribe Velez (2002-2010), handed down in July by a Bogotá court for alleged crimes of procedural fraud and bribery.

The court decision, which made Uribe the first Colombian ex-president ever convicted, has generated an outburst of reactions inside and outside Colombia. The first instance ruling, issued by Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia, concluded that the former president was guilty of bribery in criminal proceedings by determining that his lawyer, Diego Cadena, offered benefits to former paramilitaries to retract testimonies linking him to illegal armed groups in the 1990s. The defense and critics of the process have called the trial a political persecution against Uribe, casting doubt on the legality of evidence presented by authorities, especially some 2018 wiretaps deemed illegal.

In his 81-page appeal, Deputy Inspector General Bladimir Cuadro Crespo gave reason to the defense, arguing that the sentence presents "gaps in the assessment and evaluation of fundamental evidence" and that "it did not establish beyond a reasonable doubt" Uribe's responsibility as a perpetrator of the facts. It also accuses the judge of omitting the application of principles such as the presumption of innocence.

“Errors in the assessment of the evidence, mainly the incorrect objective observation of it, led to the improper application of the figure of determination,” reads one of the conclusions of the appeal filed before the Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Bogotá. “The ruling is based on conjecture and not on solid evidence that would overturn the presumption of innocence.”

"As well as the failure to apply Article 7 of Law 906, which should have resulted in the acquittal of the defendant (...) It was not established beyond reasonable doubt that former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez had the degree of knowledge required to attribute to him the alleged responsibility as a determiner of each of the accused events. The judgment of first instance did not examine in detail this essential aspect for each of the episodes examined."

The case must now be reviewed by Criminal Chamber No. 9 of the Superior Court of Bogota, which has until October—the statute of limitations date for the process—to issue a decision, finally determining Uribe's fate.

Meanwhile, the defense of Uribe, led by lawyer Jaime Granados, will file its own appeal on August 13.

The ruling has been condemned by several Republican leaders in the United States, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who denounced an instrumentalization of the Colombian judiciary by "radical judges," and Senator Rick Scott, who called the process a "political persecution" under the government of leftist President Gustavo Petro.