With the release, Álvaro Uribe also recovers a millionaire sum

This October 10, Judge 30 of Control of Guarantees Clara Ximena Salcedo ordered the release of former senator Álvaro Uribe, after spending two months in house arrest at his El Ubérrimo farm. Due to this ruling, almost 90 million pesos will have to be returned to the former president; an amount you disbursed due to the house arrest warrant initially ordered by the Supreme Court of Justice in the case of false witnesses.

According to Semana magazine, the amount consisted of “A kind of judicial policy that the law orders within the course of a process, in order to guarantee that the defendant complies with the provisions of the judge, in this case the assurance measure consisting of home detention. If there are violations of the court order, the sum could be lost. If not, at the end of the process, the justice must reimburse the defendant the full amount ”.

This “kind of policy” it will have to be returned to the former president because “a bond was provided in order to guarantee the commitments that arose from the replacement of that preventive detention measure”explained the judge. In the intervention, he also added that the Judicial Services Center should be in charge of making the management so that the money is returned.

The ruling of the togada took advantage of the defense argument of the also former senator of the Republic who argued that for the existence of an assurance measure in the system of Law 906 it is mandatory that a hearing to formulate the imputation be held first.

What comes for Álvaro Uribe after his release

The declared victim of the case, Iván Cepeda, assured that he will appeal the decision of the judge 30 of guarantees, in the case of false witnesses against former President Uribe.

“We are going to appeal the decision and continue fighting in the judicial courts, since we also have the very small conviction of the responsibility of former senator Uribe in the crimes of bribery and procedural fraud,” said Senator Cepeda, who also manifested himself by saying through his Twitter account that: “The judge’s decision does not alter my intimate conviction of respect for justice and compliance with its decisions. We do not share that decision, of course, and we are going to appeal “

For the moment, “Legally, the freedom of the former senator does not mean that the process has finished, as there are hundreds of evidence -according to the Semana Magazine that had access to the file- that still have to be analyzed by the Prosecutor’s Office and debated by a judge of knowledge, ”reported this medium.

If a formal accusation is made against the leader of the Democratic Center, it remains to be determined on what terms and with what charges. The most likely thing is that it will happen, since Diego Cadena, who was Uribe’s lawyer and is involved in the process, has already been formally accused of the same events. According to the Semana publication, it is more likely that the Prosecutor’s Office makes a less serious qualification and that the crimes and criminal implications are different.

Regarding the political landscape, former President Álvaro Uribe continues to be supported by government personalities, such as Diego Molano Aponte, director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic (Dapre); who is very close to President Duque, and said that the judicial decision is a “good message for the country, for him and his family.”