Bogotá’s appeals court docket has simply overturned the bribery conviction of former president Álvaro Uribe (Oct 21, 2025).
In plain phrases, judges stated a part of the trial report couldn’t be used—as a result of a Supreme Court wiretap unintentionally captured Uribe’s cellphone—and half might: recordings of calls by his then-lawyer, Diego Cadena.
Two witness episodes tied to ex-paramilitaries had been thrown out. A separate rely for procedural fraud remains to be being learn. The impact is to drag the core proof for bribery off the desk whereas leaving different proof alive.
Why this issues past Colombia is straightforward. It’s a stress take a look at of whether or not a serious Latin American democracy can apply clean-evidence guidelines to its strongest figures with out concern or favor.
The ruling narrows what the state proved, clarifies the place the authorized strains are, and forces prosecutors to fulfill a better bar. That is the sort of institutional readability traders, diplomats, and neighbors watch carefully.
The story behind the story begins years earlier. Uribe, who led Colombia from 2002 to 2010 and stays the proper’s pivotal determine, grew to become entangled in allegations that emissaries tried to steer testimony from former paramilitary members.
Uribe’s Case Resets: Legal and Political Stakes in Colombia
A trial choose this summer time discovered him responsible of bribery in legal proceedings and procedural fraud and imposed 12 years of home arrest.
The appeals chamber later granted him liberty whereas it reviewed the case, and Uribe publicly waived any statute-of-limitations protect so the method would run to a choice. Today’s ruling resets the bribery piece and re-draws the evidentiary map.
What modifications now could be each authorized and political. Legally, the prosecution’s path narrows: they will’t depend on the mistaken wiretap however can nonetheless argue from the lawyer’s calls.
Politically, the choice reshapes Colombia’s proper initially of a protracted run-up to 2026. Uribe isn’t out of the authorized woods, however he’s now not below a bribery conviction, and that issues within the public sq..
What to look at subsequent: the appeals court docket’s last phrase on the fraud cost, formal notification of the ruling, and any petition for Supreme Court overview. The greater takeaway is lasting: proof guidelines—not personalities—are deciding one in every of Colombia’s most charged circumstances.
