Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe found guilty of bribing witnesses in a criminal investigation.

Through his lawyer, Diego Cadena, he attempted to bribe former paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve, among others. He also attempted to manipulate witnesses to link Iván Cepeda to illegal activities.

A Bogotá judge ruled Monday that former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) is criminally responsible for bribing witnesses in a criminal case dating back to 2012.

The 44th criminal court judge of Bogotá, Sandra Liliana Heredia Aranda, has announced in a hearing that has lasted six hours that Uribe is guilty of the crime of bribery in criminal proceedings because through his lawyer, Diego Cadena, he tried to bribe, among others, the former paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve .

Heredia has 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 .

The former president has also been acquitted of simple bribery charges, but has been convicted of procedural fraud based on a series of documents, among which Heredia highlighted one signed by paramilitary Carlos Enrique Vélez, the content of which has been proven to be false and which was presented with the intention of launching an investigation and convicting Senator Cepeda, according to Colombian radio station Radio Caracol.

After the ruling was read, the judge announced the sentencing hearing for Friday, August 1st, at 2:00 p.m. (local time). For her part, the First Prosecutor before the Court, Marlenne Orjuela, requested that the former president be sentenced to at least 108 months in prison, or more than nine years. However, the former president's defense has five days to file an appeal against Heredia's decision.

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 sought 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 .