Overview
- Colombia’s Tribunal Superior de Bogotá revoked the August sentence that had imposed 12 years of house arrest and cleared Álvaro Uribe of witness bribery and procedural fraud.
- The panel found insufficient direct or inferential proof, faulted the first judgment’s methodology, and said the legal standard required intent (dolo directo) rather than the dolo eventual applied.
- Judges excluded phone intercepts targeting Uribe as illegally obtained and a violation of privacy, weakening key elements of the initial case.
- The decision was 2–1, with Magistrate María Leonor Oviedo dissenting in favor of upholding the original conviction.
- Senator Iván Cepeda and victims’ lawyers said they will seek a Supreme Court cassation review that could take years, as political reactions intensified with President Gustavo Petro condemning the ruling and Uribe’s allies celebrating.