Overview

• Colombia’s Tribunal Superior de Bogotá ordered the immediate release of Álvaro Uribe as it reviews his appeal of a 12-year house-arrest sentence for fraud and witness bribery.
• The ruling said the first judge’s reasons for restricting liberty were vague and imprecise and found no objective signs of flight risk or attempted evasion, according to magistrate Leonel Rogeles Moreno.
• The appellate decision addresses only the measure of detention and not the question of guilt, and the full second-instance review is now under way with a ruling due by mid-October.
• Uribe’s defense secured the measure through an amparo petition alleging violations of presumption of innocence, liberty and due process in the first-instance order.
• Separately, a judicial-rights NGO asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for protection for Judge Sandra Heredia after reported death threats and denigrating campaigns.