Colombian court rejects ex-leader Uribe's house arrest bid
Uribe's criminal conviction – the first to be issued to a former leader of Colombia – marked a dismal cap for the career of one of the country's most divisive politicians.
The 73-year-old, who remains highly popular and influential among conservatives, led a relentless military campaign against drug cartels and the FARC guerrilla army while president from 2002 to 2010.
A judge with the Superior Tribunal of Bogota on Monday ruled "to not issue the provisional measure" requested by Uribe's attorneys, saying in the court ruling that the appeal for release "does not meet the standards of urgency" required by Colombian law.
Uribe was convicted of interfering with witnesses in a separate investigation into his alleged links with right-wing paramilitaries responsible for atrocities while fighting leftist rebels.
He was also convicted of obstructing justice.
At his sentencing, the trial court judge declared him to be a flight risk and ordered him to be placed under house arrest at his home in the town of Rionegro, near Colombia's second city of Medellin.
Uribe's lawyers had petitioned the Supreme Court on Monday to set him free, assuring he had no intention of leaving his homeland.
A law-and-order hardliner, Uribe was a close ally of the United States and retains ties to the American right.
He claims his conviction is a political witch hunt by the administration of left-wing President Gustavo Petro.
He has until August 13 to appeal his conviction, at which point an appellate court has until October 16 to issue a ruling. If that date passes without a decision, the case will be considered closed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Straits Times
4 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Calls to boycott American goods grow in India
FROM McDonald's and Coca-Cola to Amazon and Apple, United States-based multinationals are facing calls for a boycott in India as business executives and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's supporters stoke anti-American sentiment to protest against US tariff. India, the world's most populous nation, is a key market for American brands that have rapidly expanded to target a growing base of affluent consumers, many of whom remain infatuated with international labels seen as symbols of moving up in life. India, for example, is the biggest market by users for Meta's WhatsApp and Domino's has more restaurants than any other brand in the country. Beverages like Pepsi and Coca-Cola often dominate store shelves, and people still queue up when a new Apple store opens or a Starbucks cafe doles out discounts. Although there was no immediate indication of sales being hit, there's a growing chorus both on social media and offline to buy local and ditch American products after President Donald Trump imposed a 50 per cent tariff on goods from India, rattling exporters and damaging ties between New Delhi and Washington. McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Amazon and Apple did not immediately respond to Reuters queries. Manish Chowdhary, cofounder of India's Wow Skin Science, took to LinkedIn with a video message urging support for farmers and startups to make "Made in India" a "global obsession", and to learn from South Korea whose food and beauty products are famous worldwide. "We have lined up for products from thousands of miles away. We have proudly spent on brands that we don't own, while our own makers fight for attention in their own country," he said. Rahm Shastry, chief executive officer of India's DriveU, which provides a car driver on call service, wrote on LinkedIn: "India should have its own home-grown Twitter/Google/YouTube/WhatsApp/FB — like China has." To be fair, Indian retail companies give foreign brands like Starbucks stiff competition in the domestic market, but going global has been a challenge. Indian IT services firms, however, have become deeply entrenched in the global economy, with the likes of TCS and Infosys providing software solutions to clients world over. On Sunday, Modi made a "special appeal" for becoming self-reliant, telling a gathering in Bengaluru that Indian technology companies made products for the world but "now is the time for us to give more priority to India's needs". He did not name any company. Even as anti-American protests simmer, Tesla launched its second showroom in India, with Monday's opening attended by Indian commerce ministry officials and US embassy officials. The Swadeshi Jagran Manch group, which is linked to Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, took out small public rallies across India on Sunday, urging people to boycott American brands. "People are now looking at Indian products. It will take some time to fructify," said Ashwani Mahajan, the group's co-convenor. "This is a call for nationalism, patriotism." He also shared with Reuters a table his group is circulating on WhatsApp, listing Indian brands of bath soaps, toothpaste and cold drinks that people could choose over foreign ones. On social media, one of the group's campaigns is a graphic titled "Boycott foreign food chains", with logos of McDonald's and many other restaurant brands. In Uttar Pradesh, Rajat Gupta, 37, who was dining at a McDonald's in Lucknow on Monday, said he wasn't concerned about the tariff protests and simply enjoyed the 49-rupee coffee he considered good value for money.
Herald Malaysia
8 hours ago
- Herald Malaysia
Colombian Bishops mourn assassinated Senator Miguel Uribe
The Bishops of Colombia express their deep sorrow for the death of Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a presidential hopeful who was shot at a political rally in June. Aug 12, 2025 Maria Claudia Tarazona, wife of Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, stands next to his coffin in Colombia's Congress, in Bogota, on August 11, 2025 (LUISA GONZALEZ) By Devin Watkins & James Blears Colombian Senator and presidential aspirant Miguel Uribe, who was shot at a rally in Bogota in June, died of his wounds on Monday. His family announced that he died in hospital at the age of 39. The late Senator Uribe was campaigning for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Center Party for next year's election on June 7 when he was shot twice in the head and once in the leg by a fifteen-year-old gunman. The suspect fled but was shot, wounded and arrested. Senator Uribe underwent several surgeries but remained in critical condition. His widow, Maria Claudia, released a statement saying she is praying to God to show her how to continue and take care of their two children. Thousands of people have held vigils and prayed for the senator. After his death, the Colombian Bishops' Conference released a statement mourning his death. 'We express our solidarity with his entire family and, in Christian hope, we commend them to the Lord that He may console them,' said the Bishops. They urged the Colombian authorities to pursue the investigation into the assassination. 'We call on Colombians to 'not let hope be stolen from us' and to react peacefully, defending the principles and values that constitute us as a nation,' they said. The Colombian Bishops urged the nation to uphold its motto of 'Liberty and Order,' so that freedom and respect may guarantee the integral human development of all Colombians. Former President of Colombia Alvaro Uribe, who is not a relative of the assassinated senator, said: 'They have killed hope. May Miguel's struggle be a beacon, which illuminates Colombia's path.' Years ago, Miguel's Mother Diana Turbay, a journalist, was kidnapped by gunmen of Pablo Escobar and died during a failed rescue attempt by the police. Miguel always said her courage inspired him to work for the future of Colombia. The motive for his assassination remains unclear, even though the suspect and several men have been arrested and are still being questioned.--Vatican News
Malaysian Reserve
9 hours ago
- Malaysian Reserve
China urges firms not to use Nvidia H20 chips in new guidance
CHINA has urged local companies to avoid using Nvidia Corp.'s H20 processors, particularly for government-related purposes, complicating the chipmaker's attempts to recoup billions in lost China revenue as well as the Trump administration's unprecedented push to turn those sales into a US government windfall. Over the past few weeks, Chinese authorities have sent notices to a range of firms discouraging use of the less-advanced semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named discussing sensitive information. The guidance was particularly strong against the use of H20s for any government or national security-related work by state enterprises or private companies, the people said. In addition to Nvidia, Beijing's overall push affects AI accelerators from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., one of the people said, though it's unclear whether any letters specifically mentioned AMD's MI308 chip. Both companies recently secured Washington's approval to resume lower-end AI chip sales to China, on the controversial and legally questionable condition that they give the US government a 15% cut of the related revenue. Now, Nvidia and AMD face the challenge that their Chinese customers are under Beijing's pressure not to make those purchases. Some of Beijing's letters to companies included a series of questions, according to one of the people, such as why they buy Nvidia H20 chips over local alternatives, whether that's a necessary choice given domestic options, and whether they've found any security issues in the Nvidia hardware. The notices coincide with state media reports that cast doubt on the security and reliability of H20 processors. Chinese regulators have raised those concerns directly with Nvidia, which has repeatedly denied that its chips contain such vulnerabilities. Right now, China's most stringent chip guidance is limited to sensitive applications, a situation that bears similarities to the way Beijing restricted Tesla Inc. vehicles and Apple Inc. iPhones in certain institutions and locations over security concerns. China's government also at one point barred the use of Micron Technology Inc. chips in critical infrastructure. Still, it's possible that Beijing may extend its heavier-handed Nvidia and AMD guidance to a wider range of settings, according to one person with direct knowledge of the deliberations, who said that those conversations are in early stages. AMD declined to comment, while Nvidia said in a statement that 'the H20 is not a military product or for government infrastructure.' China has ample supplies of domestic chips, Nvidia said, and 'won't and never has relied on American chips for government operations.' China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Cyberspace Administration of China did not respond to faxed requests for comment on this story, which is based on interviews with more than a half-dozen people familiar with Beijing's policy discussions. The White House did not respond to a request for comment outside normal business hours. wants Chinese companies to shift away from Western chips in favor of local offerings. Officials have previously urged Chinese firms to choose domestic semiconductors over Nvidia H20 processors, Bloomberg reported last September, and have introduced energy efficiency standards that the H20 chip does not meet. But Beijing has stopped short of outright banning the hardware, which Nvidia designed specifically for Chinese customers to abide by years of US curbs on sales of advanced chips to the Asian country. The H20 chip has less computational power than Nvidia's top offerings, but its strong memory bandwidth is quite well suited to the inference stage of AI development, when models recognize patterns and draw conclusions. That's made it a desirable product to companies like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. in China, where domestic chip champion Huawei Technologies Co. is struggling to produce enough advanced components to meet market demand. By one estimate from Biden officials — who considered but did not implement controls on H20 sales — losing access to that Nvidia chip would make it three to six times more expensive for Chinese companies to run inference on advanced AI models. 'Beijing appears to be using regulatory uncertainty to create a captive market sufficiently sized to absorb Huawei's supply, while still allowing purchases of H20s to meet actual demands,' said Lennart Heim, an AI-focused researcher at RAND, of China's push for companies to avoid American AI chips. 'This signals that domestic alternatives remain inadequate even as China pressures foreign suppliers.' President Donald Trump on Monday called the H20 chip 'obsolete,' saying that China 'already has it in a different form.' That echoed previous statements by officials in his administration, who defended the decision to resume H20 exports on the grounds that Huawei already offers comparable chips to the H20. The US should keep the Chinese AI ecosystem reliant on less-advanced American technology for as long as possible, these officials argue, in order to deprive Huawei of the revenue and know-how that would come from a broader customer base. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other Trump officials have also claimed that the H20 move was part of a deal to improve American access to Chinese rare-earth minerals — despite the Trump team's previous assertions that such an arrangement was not on the table. 'As the Chinese deliver their magnets, then the H20s will come off,' Lutnick said last month. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in late July that the magnet issue had been 'solved.' The first Nvidia H20 and AMD MI308 licenses arrived a bit over a week after Bessent's declaration — after Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang met with the president and both companies agreed to share their China revenue with the US government. —BLOOMBERG
