The truth about the supposed photo of the judge with Álvaro Uribe that circulates in networks

The decision to order the release of former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez has given rise to all kinds of speculation. Judge 30 of Guarantee Control, Clara Ximena Salcedo, who issued the concept and the order this Saturday morning, has even been implicated in them.

After the news was known, dozens of users on social networks began to share the image of the former president on a public stage with a woman who they accused of being the judge who released Uribe.

Some accounts dedicated to spreading rumors were in charge of spreading a cloak of doubt about the judicial official. In one of the messages you can read the request to the Superior Council of the Judiciary to “investigate the veracity of this photo, since the supposed friendly relationship between the former president and the judge who released him is hovering”

The rumor gained so much force that the same protagonist of the photo had to come out to deny the information. This is Catalina Suárez, a specialist in Government Strategy and Communication, political analyst and panelist for several radio programs. Suárez, remarkably desperate, wrote:

“Since yesterday I have not stopped receiving threats because they are using a photo of me to DECEIVE saying that I was part of the Álvaro Uribe Vélez process. (…) to outrage the ignorant ”.

The woman drew attention to the impact of the publication, which by that time had 1,800 shares on Facebook.

Catalina Suárez even rebuked some of the users who gave the photo for certain. He wrote vehemently “THE ONE IN THE PHOTO I AM, THAT I AM NOT THE JUDGE.”

The real story of the judge

Clara Ximena Salcedo is a young lawyer who doesn’t really look like the woman in the photo physically. His activity in the process against Uribe came randomly.

In her 10 years as a lawyer, she was responsible for conducting several hearings and listening to both the defense of the former president and the victims in the case to reach the ruling that released the political leader this Saturday, October 10. It is a sensitive and controversial case from any point of view, but Salcedo knew how to circumvent under his constitutional functions a terrain that involves one of the most decisive political figures of the last decades in the country.

Only the basics of her professional path are known about the young judge. El Espectador reported that little is known about her and less when no Paloquemao official wants or can refer to Salcedo.

As detailed by that outlet, Salcedo graduated from Law at the National University, just as Uribe was leaving the House of Nariño. In 2017, when Uribe was finishing his third year in the Senate, Salcedo came to support the office of magistrate José Francisco Acuña in the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court. And in March 2018, while Salcedo was ‘fighting’ a quota to serve as a municipal criminal judge, the investigation against Uribe was just starting.

The lawyer sought to be a judge of knowledge, but was selected as Bogotá’s 30th guarantee judge with an outstanding score in the knowledge test. That change of route led her to be in the focus of the press and of the millions of Colombians who follow this process, from one side or the other.

The decision of the robe to release Uribe was based on the fact that there can be no detention without charges under Law 906, which now governs the case.