This Monday, July 28, and after 67 hearings, The ruling was read in the case against former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez for the alleged crimes of bribery to witnesses and procedural fraud.
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Judge 44 Criminal of the Circuit of Bogotá, Sandra Liliana Heredia, was in charge of communicating the decision in the first instance of the considered ‘Judgment of the century’.
“Given the importance of this process, which has aroused so many passions – although we know that the meaning of the ruling is a decision that goes hand in hand with the sentence -, I will extend a little so that the whole country knows the reasons why this office makes this decision”Heredia said before starting reading.
Throughout the inquiry, both the Prosecutor and the Defense presented more than 90 witnesses who supported their respective theses. Besides, A summary of several folios, statements and evidence was studied.
Protests for and against reading the failure
While the reading of the meaning is not over, the judge indicated that The Prosecutor’s Office managed to prove the responsibility of the accused in the crime of bribery in criminal actionone of the three for which he was taken to trial.
“The first bribery in criminal action regarding the materiality of punishable conduct has been accredited,” Heredia pointed out when evaluating the contacts of the lawyer Diego Cadena, who represented Uribe, with the exparamilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve, imprisoned in a prison in Bogotá, so that he did not declare about the alleged links of the former president with those illegal armed groups.
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Process history
This process dates back to 2012, when Uribe sued the Supreme Court for alleged manipulation of witnesses to the left -wing senator Iván Cepeda, who at that time prepared a complaint in the Senate against him for alleged links with paramilitarism.
However, Judge José Luis Barceló did not open investigation against the congressman, but The former president for alleged witness manipulation began a process so they would not declare against him.
Former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez
The criminal Jaime Granados, who leads Uribe’s defense, insists that his client never ordered anyone to bribe and his only interest in sueing Cepeda It was defending his honor and looking for the truth.
Uribe, who after finishing his presidential period was elected senator in 2014 and 2018, resigned from his seat in August 2020 so that his case would pass to ordinary justice. The prosecution initially found no evidence to accuse him, but after going to several legal instances,
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