The defense of the former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe has presented a guardianship action on Monday to suspend the arrest of his client. In a brief based before the Superior Court of Bogotá, the lawyer Jaime Granados has argued that the conviction of last Friday violates “the fundamental rights to human dignity, to due process, to the presumption of innocence and freedom.” Its objective, through this exceptional mechanism, is to obtain a rapid response from justice while the support of the appeal is processed, which will be presented on Wednesday, August 13.
Last Friday, Judge Sandra Heredia dictated 12 years in house prison to Uribe after finding him guilty of the crimes of procedural fraud and bribery in criminal action. He justified the immediate arrest with several arguments. He pointed out that leaving him freely gave a message of impunity before society and would affect “the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of citizens.” “(One detention) avoids the negative perception that people can continue to enjoy their freedom despite a conviction,” reads the ruling. He was devastating in his criticisms of Uribe, whom he has accused of hindering justice with different tricks: “It was a grievance that merits an exemplary position, of guaranteeing that the administration of justice is not subject to manipulation.”
The guardianship indicates that the deprivation of liberty of the defendants must be exceptional when there is still no firm sentence, as is the case of Uribe’s conviction in the first instance. Granados believes that the judge was “totally ambiguous” regarding how the former president would affect citizen coexistence and that the argument of avoiding future crimes is “a very clear denial” of the presumption of innocence. “You cannot put the freedom of Álvaro Uribe at the service of ‘social calm’, since this would constitute an unacceptable instrumentalization of the person in a social state of law,” reads his application.
Information in development.
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