EL ESPECTADOR, July 28, 2025
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
After a hearing lasting nearly ten hours, the Judge of Branch 44 of Bogotá Criminal Court, Sandra Liliana Heredia, held that Uribe was the deciding actor in a network of manipulation of witnesses. Here are the details of the historic decision.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez is a person with a conviction record. At least at the trial court level. That was the holding of the Judge of Branch 44 of Bogotá Criminal Court, Sandra Liliana Heredia. The former President was convicted of the crime of bribery in a criminal case and of procedural fraud. According to the decision, it was established that the head of the Democratic Center Party was the deciding actor in a network of manipulation of witnesses to get them to testify in his favor and against Senator Iván Cepeda.
In the trial court decision, the Judge found that the former President, through his messengers, offered benefits to people serving time in jail with the objective of obtaining favorable results in some cases that prosecutors were bringing against them. He was also convicted of manipulating witnesses to testify that Senator Iván Cepeda was connected with illegal activities.
“I have concluded, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Álvaro Uribe Vélez deceitfully ordered Diego Javier Cadena Ramírez to carry out multiple instances of bribery in criminal proceedings, as well as multiple instances of procedural fraud in such proceedings.
With actions like that, it’s perfectly clear that he seriously harmed an interest protected by law in the administration of justice, an interest protected not only from the crime of bribery in criminal proceedings, but also from procedural fraud,” the Judge explained during the hearing.
Judge Heredia released the first part of her decision this July 28 in a hearing that made history in this country, and that lasted more than ten hours. In addition to the two convictions, Uribe was found Not Guilty of simple bribery because, as she explained, she did not find that the former President had committed that crime when he supposedly offered something to former prosecutor Hilda Niño so that she would speak in his favor.
It’s a judicial decision, marked also by politics, that originated in September 2014 when former President Uribe Vélez filed a complaint with the Supreme Court of Justice against Cepeda, alleging abuse of public office, procedural fraud, and aggravated defamation.
In 2018, the High Court dismissed the complaint for lack of evidence, but not without turning it on its head, stating that, contrary to Uribe’s allegation, the action that needed to be investigated was his own. In July of that year, they opened a formal investigation, but when he resigned his seat in the Senate, the case landed in the Attorney General’s Office.
After seven years of judicial and political “comings and goings”, the file landed with a trial court decision in which Uribe Vélez was found guilty of leading a criminal strategy of offering money to those who would manipulate witnesses in legal proceedings.
The key evidence in the case against Uribe
Among the key pieces of testimony in the file was that of Juan Guillermo Monsalve, alias “Guacharaco”, the son of a former butler at one of the ranches of the Uribe Vélez family in Antioquia Department. Monsalve told Cepeda that at the Guacharacas ranch in San José del Nus (Antioquia Department) the Uribe family allegedly stimulated the creation of the Metro Bloc of the paramilitaries.
Because of the content of his testimony, Diego Cadena contacted him in February 2018, right after the Court’s decision against Uribe, and offered him some benefits in exchange for retracting his statements. The High Court, and later, the Attorney General’s Office, maintained that Uribe was decisive in arranging that meeting and making the illegal offer. Monsalve recorded the meeting with a Spy Watch, and the meeting’s contents were a key piece of evidence throughout the entire case.
After that approach, the Supreme Court and the Attorney General’s Office documented the way an old friend of Monsalve’s, Carlos López, alias “Caliche”, also contacted him, naming former President Uribe’s name, and offered him benefits if he would record a video containing the retraction. Those pressures, the file says, relied on the brokerage of then-Representative in the Chamber, Álvaro Hernán Prada, also on trial for these activities.
Another personage who was key in the case was the former paramilitary, Carlos Enrique Vélez, alias Victor, who had made an accusation and offered evidence that the emissary Cadena had offered as much as 200 million pesos (roughly USD $48,000 at current exchange rates) for testimony in favor of the former President. According to his version, he and his family had received as much as 26 million pesos (roughly USD $6,200 at current exchange rates) but he kept insisting that the money was “humanitarian payments”.
The attorney, whose license has been suspended, is also on trial for the crimes of procedural fraud and bribery in a criminal action. According to the former President’s defense, Uribe never knew that Cadena was offering money to bribe a witness, and the only thing he did was seek out information in the jails to prove that Cepeda was manipulating a former paramilitary to testify against him.
Throughout the trial they also heard the testimony of former paramilitaries with the alias of “Diana”, “Poli”, “Sinai”, and “Cadavid”. They were alleged to have sent letters to Cadena in which they assured him that Senator Cepeda had contacted them in 2012 so they would talk about Uribe’s alleged connection with the paramilitaries, in exchange for economic and legal benefits. However, the file brought evidence that they had never signed the letters and that they did indeed know who Cepeda was, although they denied it to the Court.
Who were the parties opposed to Uribe in the trial?
Prosecutor Mariene Orjuela, assigned to the Supreme Court of Justice, appeared on behalf of the investigating entity. She was the official charged throughout the trial with putting forward all the evidence that had been collected over the years. The group of victims, largely made up by Senator Cepeda, Doctora Deyanira Gómez, Monsalve’s former wife, who had been both threatened and stalked, was always at her side.
Besides that there were the former Attorney General and now Justice Minister, Eduardo Montealegre, and his former Deputy Attorney General, Fernando Perdomo, who had been the objects of an attempted sabotage in which they were accused of orchestrating judicial frame-ups against Uribe and his brother Santiago Uribe.
With regard to the Álvaro Uribe Vélez group of defenders, there were the lawyers, Jaime Granados, who was the main defense attorney, and Jaime Lombana, the back-up. Throughout the trial, they both maintained that the former President was innocent, arguing that there was no evidence to corroborate the criminal complaint brought by the prosecutors.
Former President Uribe himself had an open microphone, face to face with the Judge and argued that they had fabricated a persecution to “damage him politically and in public opinion.” He said that “Senator Cepeda based his campaigns on damaging my reputation. He connected me with drug trafficking, with Pablo Escobar,” he claimed in a hearing on last July 8.
The key moments in the Uribe Vélez case
- September 2014: Álvaro Uribe Vélez files a complaint against Iván Cepeda.
- February 2018: The Supreme Court closes its investigation of Iván Cepeda and asks that one be opened against Uribe Vélez.
- July 2018: The Supreme Court opens a formal investigation of Uribe.
- October 2019: Uribe is called to testify by the Investigative Branch of the Supreme Court. (This decision was approved as a charge in the ordinary justice system.)
- August 2020: The Supreme Court orders Uribe Vélez arrested. On August 18, the former President resigned his seat in the Senate.
- March 2021: The head prosecutor under Attorney General Barbosa, Gabriel Jaimes, requested that the whole file be excluded from evidence.
- April 2022: The Judge in Branch 28 of the Bogotá Criminal Court denied the motion, finding that the prosecutors failed to argue the correct motion to dismiss the case
- August 2022: The second prosecutor from the Barbosa era, Javier Cárdenas, renewed the motion to exclude the file and dismiss the case.
- May 2023: The Judge in Branch 42 of the Bogotá Criminal Court denied the prosecution’s second motion to exclude the file, holding that the defense had once again failed to make the case.
- October 2023: The Superior Criminal Court of Bogotá upheld the trial court’s denial of the motion by prosecutor Javier Cárdenas to exclude the file and close the case.
- March 2024: Barbosa is no longer Attorney General and is replaced by Adriana Luz Camargo.
- July 2025: The decision by the trial court in Branch 44 of the Criminal Court in Bogotá.
- October 2025: The statute of limitations may expire.
The future of the case against Álvaro Uribe
All the parties involved in the case have the right to appeal the decision. Former President Álvaro Uribe’s defense attorneys have announced that they will appeal Judge Heredía’s decision, and the Bogotá Superior Court will be in charge of reviewing it. After a joint study by three Justices, they will issue their decision, which could affirm the trial court’s decision or could find the former President Not Guilty. Since the statute of limitations on the Uribe Vélez case will expire in October of this year, the Bogotá Superior Court has until October to issue its decision. In case they do that, and the result is unfavorable for the defendant, there could still be a final extraordinary option before the Supreme Court of Justice: appeal for annulment.