[RSS][Colombia] Bogota appeals court rejects request to release Uribe

[RSS]

The Bogota Superior Tribunal rejected a formal request to revoke the detention of Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Friday.

The request that was filed by Uribe’s defense attorney, Jaime Granados, claimed that the detention of the former president was “arbitrary and contrary to human dignity” as his fraud and bribery conviction came about because of the judge’s “serious motivational vices and in clear disregard of his presumption of innocence.”

Granados claimed that Uribe can’t effectively be jailed or even deemed a convict until after the appeals process, which is pending before the superior tribunal.

Within hours, the tribunal rejected the request, stressing that Granados failed to expose any wrongdoings in the proceedings that led the judge to order the immediate arrest of the former president.

“For the time being, there is no irregularity of the necessary significance to consider a relevant affectation of the fundamental rights of the aforementioned,” said the court in a preliminary ruling.

While still on trial, Granados asked the superior tribunal to remove the judge from the case, which also failed.

Uribe’s defense attorneys will have until later this month to formally appeal the decision of judge Sandra Heredia, who convicted the former president on multiple counts of fraud and bribery.

According to the court, Uribe bribed witnesses to give false statements that would obstruct investigations into his family’s alleged ties to paramilitary groups in the 1990’s.

Multiple former paramilitary fighters have testified that Uribe and his brother Santiago helped create and maintain the Bloque Metro paramilitary group on their family’s Guacharacas estate in Antioquia.

The prosecution is also looking into Santiago Uribe’s alleged role in the creation of the 12 Apostles paramilitary group.

Both groups are responsible for many thousands of homicides that were committed as part of far-right “social cleansing” campaigns in Antioquia.

 

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Source: https://colombiareports.com/bogota-appe ... ase-uribe/