Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez filed a criminal complaint on Friday, August 1, against President Gustavo Petro, alleging harassment and defamation, in what is rapidly becoming one of the most polarizing chapters in the nation’s recent history. The complaint comes just hours before the former two-term conservative leader faces sentencing from a Bogotá judge after he was found guilty on three charges, from witness tampering to procedural fraud. The decades-long case against Uribe has been called Colombia’s “trial of the century.”
Uribe, who governed Colombia from 2002 to 2010 and remains an influential figure as the founder of the right-wing Centro Democrático party, filed the legal complaint through the law firm Víctor Mosquera Marín Abogados before the Accusations Committee of Colombia’s House of Representatives. This committee is the only constitutional body empowered to investigate a sitting president.
At the center of the complaint is a series of inflammatory posts made on July 28 and 29 from President Petro’s official X account. “In those posts, President Petro made direct, unfounded accusations without judicial backing, attributing to the former President Uribe serious criminal behaviors such as homicides, drug trafficking, paramilitarism, and corruption – acts for which there is no criminal conviction or judicial ruling to support such claims”.
President Petro’s comments come on the heels of a landmark ruling issued by Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia, who determined that Uribe had given the order to bribe a key witness, former paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve, to discredit testimony that allegedly linked him to the creation of a paramilitary faction in the department of Antioquia of the United Self-Defense Forces (AUC). The judge emphasized that the conviction was reached “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Rather than allowing the legal process to unfold independently, Uribe’s lawyers claim that Petro exploited the ruling to score political points and weaponize the presidency against a respected political rival. “The president (Petro) has launched public accusations using language typical of criminal indictments without a court having ruled in such a manner,” reads a statement from Uribe’s legal team. “This undermines due process and violates the principle of presumption of innocence.”
In the wake of the verdict, President Petro posted: “The political and judicial country of Álvaro Uribe, which brought about massacres, parapolitics, and corruption, is not the Colombia of our future.” Though framed as a broad political reflection, the comments have been criticized as an overreach of executive authority and a calculated attempt to shape public opinion against a former head of state during a sensitive moment.
The controversy escalated further on July 29, during the commemoration of Santa Marta’s 500th anniversary. In a nationally televised speech, Petro used the occasion to lash out not only at his domestic critics but also at the United States, after U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly criticized the court ruling against Uribe.
On Thursday, John McNamara, Chargé d’Affaires at the United States Embassy met with President Petro in Bogotá, where the senior diplomat reaffirmed his government’s commitment to maintain “open dialogue based on respect and mutual benefit.” McNamara’s visit to Casa Nariño came after Petro told the U.S administration to refrain from “interfering” in Colombia’s internal affairs regarding the Uribe verdict.
Colombia’s Constitutional Court also issued a statement this week in which it underscored its independence and judicial soverignity in all matters relating to court rulings and the nation’s justice system.
“Why should we lower our heads to a congressman who insults our judges today?” said Petro at the Santa Marta ceremony. “Why doesn’t the Constitutional Court, through its president, stand up and declare that this country is independent and sovereign, and that our judges must be respected? Or have we become a colony again?”
Without directly naming Secretary Rubio, Petro has accused “foreign actors” of attempting to undermine Colombia’s judiciary, framing their comments as neocolonial interference. “Tell the United States that Colombia does not bow its head,” he said. “Otherwise, we are inviting new conquistadors, new bloodstained swords. We are repeating the horrors and the errors of five centuries ago.”
Uribe’s legal team was direct in noting that Petro’s statements, “made from the presidential office and using institutional channels, not only constitute an attack on the honor, good name, and personal and political dignity of Dr. Álvaro Uribe Vélez, but also amount to a systematic practice of political stigmatization and harassment, aimed at delegitimizing a nationally significant political leader and those who share his ideology.”
