Brother of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe is sentenced for backing paramilitaries

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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A brother of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe was sentenced Tuesday to 28 years in prison for his alleged role in an illegal paramilitary group linked to hundreds of killings during the peak of Colombia’s civil war.

Prosecutors said that in the 1990s Santiago Uribe backed a group known as The 12 Apostles, which has been linked to at least 300 slayings and dozens of forced disappearances.

The group was set up to protect ranchers in Colombia’s Antioquia province from attacks by left-wing guerrillas who kidnapped and extorted business owners, including Uribe’s father, who was murdered in 1983 during a botched kidnapping attempt.

Santiago Uribe, now 68 and a horse breeder, has denied ties to criminal organizations.

On Tuesday he was found guilty of murder and aggravated conspiracy by a panel of three judges in his home province of Antioquia. His defense said they will appeal the ruling at Colombia’s Supreme Court.

The ruling comes just weeks after a court in Bogota overturned a 12-year-prison sentence against former President Uribe.

The conservative leader was convicted of bribery and witness tampering in August by a judge in Bogota, after a senator accused Uribe of trying to flip witnesses who had collaborated with a probe into his alleged ties with paramilitary groups. In October, an appeals court said that evidence used in the initial trial against Uribe was inconclusive, and that the sentence against him was based on vague premises. Sen. Iván Cepeda, the legislator who led the investigation against Uribe, has filed an appeal with Colombia’s Supreme Court.

Uribe governed Colombia between 2002 and 2010. During his administration Colombia strengthened military ties with the United States, and the nation’s army obtained critical victories against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in which several of the group's leaders were killed. After a string of heavy defeats, the rebels engaged in peace talks that ended with the group’s disarmament in 2016.

Supporters of Uribe credit the former president with improving security in Colombia, while critics say he turned a blind eye to human rights abuses, which included alliances between the military and right wing death squads.

Uribe said Tuesday on the social media platform X that he “deeply regretted” the sentencing of his brother. “May God help us," Uribe wrote.

The former president is now one of the main leaders of Colombia’s conservative movement, and one of the most vocal critics of the nation’s current President Gustavo Petro.

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