'Political matters prevailed over legal matters': former President Álvaro Uribe in his appeal

After the amount of former President Álvaro Uribe's sentence was announced at Friday's hearing , he had time to express his concerns about the ruling and the judge's attitude during the proceedings . First, he questioned the short time, in his opinion, the court is giving him to appeal the verdict.

"A few notes on what happened today," said Uribe, who then questioned the fact that the deadline for filing the appeal had been extended by only two days, giving the defense a total of seven business days to present the appeal text: "An extension was requested to be able to analyze a 1,100-page ruling that has worn down the administration of justice, which they have appealed to in order to destroy a voice of the democratic opposition," said the former president, who insisted throughout that the decision was politically motivated, not legally motivated.

To support this argument, Uribe emphasized the comment made by Judge Sandra Heredia at the beginning of the session, in which she asserted that the president's children lacked the courage to accompany him during the reading of the sentence, but instead spoke out about the case on social media. In response to this statement, the former president questioned the judge.

He asserted that while his children were labeled as lacking in courage by the judge, they have shown respect for her, and "we haven't had a single comment against the judge." He added: "My children are critical of the government but have been respectful of the judge. To say that my children have lacked courage is a very serious accusation ." According to the former president, these types of comments can lead to "violent actions against my children."

Following this, the Democratic Center leader commented that she wasn't surprised by such comments, as they had been subjected to them throughout the entire process. "I'm not surprised. On many occasions, they spoke with acquiescence against my defense. There was no respect for me or my defense. One of the issues for which we had to appeal to higher courts was the judge's animosity toward my defense ," she stated.

"This animosity demonstrates that there was bias here; that must be addressed by the competent bodies and international justice ," he added, before reiterating: "Politics has prevailed over the law in condemning the case." In that sense, he then questioned those who brought him to trial, although he did not mention that his case began with the complaints he filed against Senator Iván Cepeda. "We should complain about those who used the justice system to target their political opponents," he declared.

Along those lines, he again questioned the length of the ruling, which he described as a political speech, and reiterated that seven days are not enough time to prepare the appeal. In another section, he questioned the judge's decision not to read the ruling in its entirety and stated that one of the reasons for not doing so was to respect the presumption of innocence. "What could be more offensive than that political speech that judged my personality, my political career, and my attitude in Monday's speech. What happened on Monday violated my right to honor ," he stated.

Uribe also criticized some of the arguments for immediately sending him to house arrest. First, he questioned the argument that this decision was made as a way to prevent violent protests. " My colleagues have not incited violence ," the former president declared, before immediately mentioning the assassination attempt on Miguel Uribe, which was not understood due to internet problems.

"One of the reasons cited is that we want to avoid violence. We have been frank in expressing our reasons for opposition, but we have not incited violence here, as happened in 2019-2021 with the current president. Our approach has been openness and civility," he added in this regard.

Later, the former president asserted that the interceptions of his phone calls and text messages revealed no evidence that he acted as a catalyst for Diego Cadena's actions.

"In that call, there was no request to lie or remain silent. The ruling accuses me of directing Dr. Cadena to negotiate with Monsalve so that he would renounce the truth. It's proven that there was never any request to lie or remain silent, so in the judgment's view, the ruling invented another grammatical phrase. It said it had directed Dr. Cadena to negotiate the truth. It's completely false. If you review the more than 18,000 interceptions, including phone calls and text messages, one constant is the demand for the truth," he said.

Uribe referred to his alleged determination to ask attorney Diego Cadena to go to La Picota: "In that call, Dr. Cadena validated with me a matter of review action that he had already mentioned 39 days earlier, without my knowledge. That statement undermines my determination."

For Uribe, the ruling contains no evidence other than inferences about "my knowledge of these transfers or my authorization." He added: "When the Prosecutor's Office asked me if I had approved payments to witnesses, my response was an exclamation of rejection, as seen in the cross-examination video."

The former president spoke of animosity and bias against him. “ There was a lack of investigation; politics prevailed over the law in convicting, ” Uribe said.

Uribe refuted one of the ruling's conclusions that accused him of obtaining witnesses against Cepeda. "What I did was request verification of information that came to me, without my having requested it. There is not a single piece of evidence that I took the initiative," he explained.

"There is not a single piece of evidence to support this political ruling that condemns me, that I took the initiative to seek witnesses, that I ordered verification. There is not a single piece of evidence to support that I paid those witnesses. There is not a single piece of evidence to support that I asked those witnesses to accuse Cepeda or someone else."

" This is an abusive ruling, one that goes beyond the legal framework; it goes against the rules, ethics, and morals. It accuses me of bribery without a shred of evidence ," the former president added.

According to Uribe, the principle of consistency was violated in his case, and he should have been acquitted due to alleged failures by the Prosecutor's Office in the case of former prosecutor Hilda Niño.

Uribe stated that the conviction, "despite my age, encourages me to continue fighting for Colombia and to announce these anomalies that affect me today. Tomorrow, while the neo-communist dictatorship continues to consolidate here, it will affect other compatriots."

Minutes later , he took aim at President Gustavo Petro and Justice Minister Eduardo Montealegre . "This is a ruling issued by upper-level sectors that imprisoned me five years ago, and it is determined by a political action involving the President of the Republic, his most important figure in the Senate, Iván Cepeda, and the Minister of Justice," he asserted.