Colombia’s Supreme Court suspends Uribe trial

Colombia’s Supreme Court ordered to suspend the trial against former President President Alvaro Uribe while a peer confirms or challenges the judge’s impartiality

The order was issued in response to a defense claim that Judge Sandra Heredia violated Uribe’s right of a fair trial when she dismissed the defense’s accusations of impartiality.

The Supreme Court ordered Heredia to forward the impartiality claim to a peer for judgement within 48 hours.

The judge may resume hearing prosecution witnesses if this peer confirms her dismissal of the defense’s impartiality accusations.

If the peer judge agrees that Heredia failed to be impartial in the trial, they would have to assume the court case and redo all proceedings that followed the initial prosecution investigation.

This peer judge will have to decide on this within 72 hours after receiving the defense accusation.

Heredia and the lawyers of Uribe’s alleged victims have accused the former president’s defense of trying to delay the procedures and secure the expirations of legal time limits.

The Supreme Court formally accused Uribe in 2018 of bribing witnesses to press bogus criminal charges against prosecutors and politicians who looked into his alleged ties to paramilitary groups.

The former president was forced to give up his Senate seat to evade a Supreme Court investigation in August of 2020.

Because Uribe had renounced his congressional privileges, the top court forwarded the case to the prosecution where political loyalists refused to prosecute the former president.

The hearing of witnesses by the prosecution started earlier this year and has struggled to move forward.

Of the 90 witnesses called by the prosecution and the defense that could either confirm or deny Uribe’s alleged fraud and bribery practices, only 15 have been heard so far.