Court orders Ex-Colombian President Uribe released from house arrest
Aug. 20 (UPI) -- A Colombia appeals court has ordered the release of former President Alvro Uribe from house arrest as he challenges his historic bribery and fraud conviction.
Uribe was sentenced by the 44th Criminal Court of the Circuit of Bogota on Aug. 1 to 12 years of house arrest after being convicted of charges connected to financial, legal and administrative offers made to former paramilitary fighters to testify against a political opponent.
Uribe is appealing the conviction, and on Tuesday, the Superior Tribunal agreed with his defense lawyers who were seeking his release from house arrest on the grounds their client's due process rights were violated.
"Thanks be to God, thanks to so many compatriots for their expressions of solidarity," Uribe wrote on X late Tuesday.
According to segments of the ruling published online by Christian Garces Aljure, a member of Colombia's House of Representatives, the Superior Tribunal found the criminal court used "vague, indeterminate and imprecise" criteria -- such as public perception, exemplary effect, peaceful coexistence and social order -- to justify the house arrest sentence.
"Such reasoning disregards the principle of equality before the law and the principle of proportionality, by prioritizing generic and symbolic aims over fundamental rights such as personal liberty," the court said.
"It is also disproportionate, given that the presumption of innocence prevails until a conviction becomes final," it said, with a final decision in the case to come down before mid-October.
"However, in this case, the measure effectively sought to enforce a penalty in advance under the guise of resocialization, based on an ambiguous argument -- namely, the concern that society might interpret the defendant's liberty as a scenario of impunity," the court added.
In posting the excerpt from the ruling, Garces celebrated the advancement of Uribe's defense, stating that the Superior Tribunal deemed the criminal court's ruling to be "disproportionate and involation of the fundamental principle of equality."
The case against Uribe goes back to 2012 when Uribe, then a senator, filed a complaint against Sen. Ivan Cepeda Castro, accusing him of witness tampering to link Uribe to illegal armed groups.
Amid its investigations, the Supreme Court of Justice found evidence that those close to Uribe had offered bribes to former paramilitaries and guerrilla fighters to testify against Cepeda.
He was then charged with manipulating evidence and misleading the justice system, resulting in his conviction and sentencing.
Uribe is the first former Colombian president to be criminally convicted in the country's modern history.
Macarena Hermosilla contributed to this report.
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