A New Mexico state judge cited Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s apparent lack of remorse in her decision to impose the sentence.
The weapons supervisor for the film Rust has been sentenced in the United States to 18 months in prison for her role in the fatal on-set shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armourer on the film, received the maximum possible sentence at Monday’s hearing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter on March 6.
The state judge who handed down the sentence, Mary Marlowe Sommer, said Gutierrez-Reed had a responsibility to keep the set safe and that she failed to do so.
“You were the armourer, the one that stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone,” Marlowe Sommer said.
“You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Ms Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother.”
Hutchins’s killing in October 2021 sent shockwaves through the Hollywood film industry.
Rust’s star and producer, Alec Baldwin, had been practising for a shootout scene with a revolver when the gun went off.
The revolver was carrying live ammunition – something banned on US film sets – and the round struck Hutchins in the chest. She died on the way to the hospital.
The bullet also hit director Joel Souza, though he has since recovered from his injuries.
Baldwin has repeatedly denied pulling the trigger, though a forensic analysis from the prosecution concluded the revolver was unlikely to fire unless he did.
Olga Solovey speaks to the loss of her daughter Halyna Hutchins via video conference in court on April 15 [Eddie Moore/Reuters, pool]
Ahead of Monday’s sentencing, defence lawyers asked the judge to consider the “devastating effect a felony will have” on the 26-year-old Gutierrez-Reed.
But prosecutors highlighted Gutierrez-Reed’s seeming lack of remorse.
“Ms Gutierrez continues to refuse to accept responsibility for her role in the death of Halyna Hutchins,” said special prosecutor Kari Morrissey.
In a court filing earlier this month, prosecutors requested that Gutierrez-Reed receive the maximum sentence “due to her recklessness in the face of knowledge that her acts were reasonably likely to result in serious harm”.
They cited instances where Gutierrez-Reed was allegedly in possession of cocaine and smuggled a firearm into a bar, something for which she faces charges in a separate case.
The filing also outlined jailhouse phone calls where Gutierrez-Reed allegedly said “she can’t believe that the judge put her in jail” and that she was “wrongly incarcerated”.
Those calls appeared to have played a role in the outcome of her sentencing hearing.
“The word ‘remorse’ – a deep regret coming from a sense of guilt for past wrongs – that’s not you,” Judge Marlowe Summer said after referring to a portion of the phone call transcripts.
At the sentencing hearing, family and friends of the late Hutchins gathered to share statements and remembrances.
“I struggle to deal with this repeatedly being called an accident, because it was not an accident, it was negligence,” said Jen White, a colleague.
Hutchins’s mother, Olga Solovey, also appeared at the hearing via video conference from Kyiv in her native Ukraine.
Speaking in Ukrainian, she testified to the impact her daughter’s death has had: “It’s the hardest thing to lose a child. There are no words to describe.”
So it begins. On Monday, history was made as former United States President Donald Trump appeared in a New York courtroom for the start of his trial over charges of falsifying business records.
He became the first US president, past or present, to stand trial on criminal charges.
Monday was the start of what is expected to be a six-week-long process, according to Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case.
Prosecutors hope to convict the former president on 34 felony charges related to hush-money payments he allegedly made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claims they had an affair.
Not only did he attempt to hide the payments, but he did so in an attempt to stem bad press and conceal information from voters just months before the 2016 presidential election, prosecutors have argued. Trump went on to win that election.
On Monday, Trump appeared at the Manhattan court in his go-to uniform: a blue suit, red tie and US flag lapel pin. He was greeted by hordes of reporters and television cameras, plus a handful of supporters and protesters.
Once inside, the prosecution and defence teams began jury selection, an undertaking that could last weeks, particularly given the political sensitivities involved.
Here are six key takeaways from the first day of the New York trial:
Former US President Donald Trump attends trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on April 15 [Michael Nagle/Pool]
Trump calls trial ‘assault on America’
Upon arriving at the court, Trump swiftly set the tone for his defence.
The trial is an “assault on America” and “political persecution”, the 77-year-old former president said.
Trump has regularly dismissed the charges against him as a political “witch-hunt”. He has also used the legal proceedings against him to energise his base — and collect donations — amid his myriad legal woes.
Early in the day, for instance, Trump’s campaign released a “fact sheet” on the trial, seeking to frame it as a means of tilting the upcoming presidential election in November.
“Fact 1: President Trump did nothing wrong. These charges are entirely fabricated in order to interfere in the election and distract from the failed presidency of Crooked Joe Biden,” the email said.
Trump reprised that theme outside the court, taking direct aim at Biden, his likely opponent in November.
“It’s a country that’s failing, it’s a country that’s run by an incompetent man and is very much involved in this case,” Trump said. “This is really an attack on a political opponent. That is all it is, so I’m very honoured to be here.”
He also accused the judge and prosecutors leading the case, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, of being partisan.
“It’s a scam. It’s a political witch hunt. It continues, and it continues forever. And we’re not going to be given a fair trial,” he told reporters at the end of the day.
Judge will not recuse himself from case
At the start of the day’s hearing, Judge Merchan denied a request from Trump’s defence team, saying once again that, no, he will not recuse himself from the trial.
Trump’s team has alleged that, since Merchan’s daughter works as a consultant with Democrats, the judge has a conflict of interest and should be taken off the case.
But Merchan said the defence team’s request relied on “a series of references, innuendos and unsupported speculation”.
Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly attempted to delay the trial, in part by calling for the judge to step down from the trial. Trump has also accused Merchan of being “corrupt”.
Merchan rejected a similar request to recuse himself last year.
Prosecutors say Trump should pay for violating gag order
Monday’s hearing also saw prosecutors seek to penalise Trump for alleged violations of a court gag order.
Judge Merchan had issued the gag order against Trump in March, prohibiting him from making statements about possible witnesses and their “potential participation” in the case.
But prosecutors on Monday said he had defied the order at least three times.
They pointed to recent social media posts Trump made, including one about his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. Trump called him a “disgraced attorney and felon”, casting doubt on his credibility.
Cohen’s testimony is expected to be central to the prosecution’s case.
“The defendant has demonstrated his willingness to flout the order. He has attacked witnesses in the case. In the past, he has attacked grand jurors in the case,” prosecutor Christopher Conroy said.
Prosecutors asked the judge to fine Trump $1,000 for each of the posts. Judge Merchan said he would hold a hearing about the gag order later in the month.
Access Hollywood tape will not be played
Judge Merchan, however, quickly denied a request from the prosecution to play an Access Hollywood recording in which Trump bragged about grabbing women by their genitalia.
Merchan made a similar decision last month, ruling that the prosecution could discuss the tape but not play it in court. Prosecutors can also question witnesses about the recording, he said.
Trump’s defence team has argued that playing the tape would be “prejudicial” for a jury.
The prosecution, however, has argued the tape is important for establishing its case. The recording became public in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election, when Trump was under scrutiny for his relationships with women.
Prosecutors will seek to show this public pressure helped motivate Trump’s hush-money schemes, as he allegedly attempted to quash unflattering press.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump demonstrate outside the Manhattan Criminal Court where jury selection was held [Stefan Jeremiah/AP]
The start of a long jury selection process
After some legal wrangling between the prosecution and the defence, the day’s main event began: jury selection.
More than 500 prospective jurors have been lined up for evaluation, 96 of whom were invited into the courtroom on Monday.
From that vast pool, the prosecution and defence team will select 12 jurors, plus six alternates.
“You are about to participate in a trial by jury. The system of trial by jury is one of the cornerstones of our judicial system,” Judge Merchan told the 96 potential jurors at the start of the day.
Each prospective juror was given a questionnaire aimed at sussing out their political bias.
They were asked where they lived, what jobs they had, what their educational background was and what media they consumed. They were also questioned about whether they had strong opinions about Trump and if they felt they could be a “fair and impartial juror”.
In Monday’s hearing, Judge Merchan appeared quick to dismiss the prospective jurors.
More than half of the 96 jurors present raised their hands to indicate they felt they could not be impartial in the case, and they were all dismissed immediately. No jurors were seated on Monday.
Trump’s woes extended outside of the courtroom, with shares of his social media company slumping by 15 percent on Monday.
Shares in the Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates the Truth Social platform, have been volatile. The shares had already fallen nearly 60 percent since the company first went public on March 26.
The company’s stock initially peaked at $70.90, and the public offering was believed to have inflated Trump’s overall wealth by billions.
However, shares were at $27.56 as Trump’s trial began.
Protesters demonstrate outside Manhattan Criminal Court on the first day of Donald Trump’s criminal trial [Stefan Jeremiah/AP]
New South Wales Police commissioner says videos of the attack ‘speak for themselves’.
Australian police have said they believe a man who fatally six stabbed people at a busy Sydney shopping centre specifically targeted women.
Five women and one man were killed on Saturday when a 40-year-old man went on a stabbing spree in the beach suburb of Bondi.
The women killed in the attack were identified as a 55-year-old designer, a 47-year-old architect and volunteer surf lifesaver, the 25-year-old daughter of an entrepreneur, a 27-year-old student from China and a 38-year-old new mother.
A 30-year-old Pakistani security guard, who reportedly tried to stop the attacker, was the only man killed in the attack.
The majority of those injured in the attack were also women.
New South Wales state Police Commissioner Karen Webb said on Monday that it was “obvious” the suspected attacker, Joel Cauchi, singled out women.
“It’s obvious to me, it’s obvious to detectives that seems to be an area of interest that the offender focused on women and avoided the men,” Webb told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
“The videos speak for themselves, don’t they? That’s certainly a line for inquiry for us.”
Webb said officers were in the process of interviewing people close to Cauchi to gain “some insight into what he might have been thinking”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the gender breakdown of the victims was “concerning”.
“The gender breakdown is of course concerning – each and every victim here is mourned,” he told ABC radio.
Videos shared on social media showed Cauchi, wearing shorts and an Australian national rugby league jersey, targeting mostly female victims as he rampaged through Westfield Bondi Junction shopping complex.
The attack was brought to an end when police inspector Amy Scott shot him dead.
Australia’s national flag has been set at half-mast at major venues, including the Parliament House and Sydney’s Harbour Bridge, in honour of the victims.
Australian police say ‘nothing’ to suggest any ‘motivation, ideology’ in Saturday’s fatal attack in Bondi Junction.
Australian police have identified a 40-year-old man as the perpetrator of a Sydney shopping centre stabbing rampage, which killed six people and left several more in critical condition.
New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said on Sunday that the man had come from the northeast state of Queensland and was known to law enforcement.
“There is still to this point nothing that we have… no intelligence that we have gathered that would suggest that this was driven by any particular motivation, ideology or otherwise,” said Cooke.
The 40-year-old man, who was shot dead by a senior policewoman at the scene on Saturday, was named as Joel Cauchi.
A Facebook profile said he came from the town of Toowoomba, near Brisbane, and had attended a local high school and university.
A distinctive grey, red and yellow dragon tattoo on his right arm was used to help identify him.
“We know that the offender in the matter suffered from, suffers from, mental health,” Cooke said.
“Preliminary investigations show this person has acted alone. I am content that there is no continuing threat,” Cooke said.
Five women and one man were killed during Cauchi’s Saturday afternoon rampage, which took place in a bustling shopping centre in Sydney’s Bondi Junction neighbourhood.
Among the injured was a nine-month-old baby who was said to be in a “serious but stable condition in hospital”.
Two of the victims are said to have no family in Australia and attempts are being made to contact the relatives overseas.
Local media reported that hundreds of people were evacuated during the attack on Saturday, with broadcast footage showing police locking down the scene and assisting the injured.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the attack as “unspeakable” and “really just beyond comprehension”.
“People going about their Saturday afternoon shopping should be safe, shouldn’t be at risk. But tragically, we saw a loss of life, and people will be grieving for loved ones today,” he said.
“We also know there are many people still in hospital dealing with recovery, and our thoughts and prayers are with them.”
Albanese said he had received messages from United States President Joe Biden, United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon among others.
Such attacks are rare in Australia, which has some of the world’s toughest gun and knife laws.
Members of the public are escorted by police officers from inside the shopping centre in Sydney [Bianca De Marchi/AAP via Reuters]
Images and footage from inside the shopping centre showed a male carrying a bloody knife. Several people inside the mall used bollards to try to stop the suspect, who was wearing shorts and a sports jersey. Videos also showed apparent victims on the ground, with emergency responders administering CPR to one victim.
A young woman who was inside the shopping centre when the attack started said she saw a woman lying on the ground in a shop.
“I didn’t see him [the attacker] properly, I was running, but it was just insane, it was insanity, I wasn’t expecting it.”
Another witness said she and her husband were inside a shop when the commotion started and managed to escape unscathed after locking themselves inside an office room.
“Somebody was injured down there, everybody was looking to see what was going on. Then we saw all these people running towards us and then we heard a shot.”
The six-level shopping centre is located in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and is relatively close to the city’s central business district.
Police officers work at the scene outside Bondi Junction [Kirsty Needham/Reuters]
But the three-member panel also upheld his ongoing imprisonment, arguing it could not ‘modify’ his sentence.
The defence team for former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas has hailed a decision declaring his arrest inside Mexico’s embassy in Quito illegal.
Still, on Friday, lawyer Sonia Vera Garcia pledged to appeal the ruling, which upheld her client’s continued detention.
“We thank the international community,” she wrote on the social media platform X. “Its support led to the detention being declared arbitrary, a step forward.”
“However, Jorge remains detained. We will appeal until we achieve his freedom.”
The ruling comes after Francisco Hidalgo — a member of Glas’s left-wing political party, Citizen Revolution — submitted a writ of habeas corpus earlier this week on the former vice president’s behalf, arguing he had been unlawfully detained.
Protesters call for the release of former Vice President Jorge Glas in Quito, Ecuador, on April 12 [Karen Toro/Reuters]
Glas’s arrest had been the subject of ongoing international tensions. On April 5, Ecuadorian police stormed the Mexican embassy, scaling its fence and pointing a gun at a top diplomat who sought to bar their entrance.
In its ruling on Friday, a three-member tribunal in Ecuador found that the arrest on embassy grounds had indeed been “illegal and arbitrary”.
Judge Monica Heredia wrote that “without authorisation from the head of the Foreign Ministry and political affairs at the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, the detention became illegal”.
International law protects embassies and consulates from the interference of local law enforcement. This “rule of inviolability” theoretically allows diplomats to conduct sensitive work without fear of reprisal from their host country.
But embattled public figures like Glas have also turned to embassies to seek temporary refuge from arrest, knowing that local police are not supposed to enter without permission.
Glas was twice convicted on corruption-related charges. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 2017 and eight years in 2020.
In the hours before his arrest, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry announced it had granted political asylum to Glas, who had been sheltering in its embassy in Quito since December.
Demonstrators show support for former Vice President Jorge Glas on April 12 [Karen Toro/Reuters]
But the embassy raid ignited a full-blown spat between Mexico and Ecuador.
In its wake, Mexico severed diplomatic ties and recalled its embassy staff from Ecuador. Countries around Latin America, as well as the Organization of American States (OAS), have also denounced the police raid.
But the government of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has sought to defend the raid as authorised by executive decree.
In addition, it argued that Glas should not be eligible for political asylum, as his convictions were not the result of persecution.
But the three-member tribunal on Friday said the government’s defence of the raid “lacks legal basis”.
Still, while the tribunal ruled that the arrest itself was illegal, it decided Glas should remain behind bars, given his prior convictions.
“This tribunal cannot modify the sentence,” Judge Heredia said.
Glas is currently serving his prison term in Guayaquil, where he is conducting a hunger strike in protest. He was hospitalised earlier this week.
On Thursday, Mexico filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice to expel Ecuador from the United Nations over the embassy raid — at least until the country delivers a formal apology for its violations of international law.
Chilean Interior Minister Carolina Toha said all ‘eyes’ are on Venezuela to act in the pursuit of justice.
Chile has announced plans to seek the extradition of two Venezuelans it considers suspects in the grisly murder of a political dissident.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Chilean Interior Minister Carolina Toha called on her Venezuelan counterparts to be partners in her country’s pursuit of justice.
“What happened in this crime is important for Chile,” she said. “We give it the highest gravity, but also it is important for Venezuela.”
She said there will be “eyes” on Venezuela’s behaviour in the matter. “The willingness to collaborate in this investigation has to be demonstrated in facts — firstly, by discovering those responsible, and secondly, by making it easier for them to face justice.”
Toha’s statement comes as part of an investigation into the killing of 32-year-old Ronald Ojeda, a Venezuelan dissident and former military lieutenant.
Ojeda had been imprisoned in Venezuela for alleged treason. In 2017, he escaped to Chile, where he sought and was granted asylum.
But early on the morning of February 21, surveillance footage showed three men disguised as Chilean police kidnapping Ojeda from his apartment. His body was later discovered on March 1 stuffed in a suitcase, buried under lime powder and cement in a Santiago suburb.
Chilean police afterwards arrested a 17-year-old Venezuelan suspect, allegedly linked to the Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s largest criminal network. Officials have said two additional suspects escaped to Venezuela.
Chilean authorities suggested on Friday that the murder was politically motivated and coordinated from Venezuela itself.
“We are talking about a victim who has participated in actions against the Venezuelan government, and secondly, he has been detained for nine months in Venezuela. He escaped and has political asylum in Chile,” said Hector Barros, a prosecutor for Santiago’s organised crime and homicide team.
“Given the profile he has, there is no other line of investigation.”
But earlier this week, Venezuela disputed the continued existence of the Tren de Aragua criminal group, with Foreign Minister Yvan Gil calling it “a fiction created by the international media”.
That prompted an outcry from the Chilean government. “It is an insult to the people of Chile and Latin America,” Toha said on Monday, referencing violent incidents credited to the group across the region.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric also announced on Thursday that he would recall his administration’s ambassador to Venezuela in response.
“The irresponsible statements from the chancellor of Venezuela, ignoring the existence of the Tren de Aragua, are worrying and constitute a serious insult to those who have been victims of this organisation and also demonstrate a lack of commitment to necessary international cooperation in matters of security,” Boric wrote on social media.
Venezuela has yet to respond to Chile’s most recent extradition requests. It has denied responsibility for Ojeda’s murder.
But the race has been marred by accusations that his government has attempted to intimidate and derail the opposition, including through detentions, arrest warrants and bans from holding public office.
Speaking on Friday, Toha, the Chilean interior minister, emphasised the need to cooperate on matters of justice.
“A case like this, with the implications it has, must have at its centre that justice is done, that the truth is found, that those responsible are discovered, and that they face sentences that correspond to [their crimes],” she said.
Bankman-Fried faces steep odds in bid to overturn conviction stemming from the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has appealed his conviction and 25-year prison sentence for stealing billions of dollars from customers of his defunct cryptocurrency exchange.
Bankman-Fried was convicted in November on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in what US authorities described as one of the biggest financial frauds in US history.
The 32-year-old former billionaire was the poster boy for cryptocurrency, gracing magazine covers and enjoying audiences with lawmakers, before the speculator collapse of FTX in 2022 amid a deluge of customer withdrawals.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyer Marc Mukasey had announced his intention to appeal the verdict and sentence during his sentencing hearing on March 28.
During his sentencing, Bankman-Fried expressed regret over his handling of FTX, saying he was “sorry about what happened at every stage”.
“It haunts me every day,” he said. “I made a series of bad decisions.”
US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan said that Bankman-Fried had not shown genuine remorse or fully accepted responsibility and there was a “risk that this man will be in position to do something very bad in the future”.
Prosecutors had asked for a prison sentence of 40-50 years, while Bankman-Fried’s lawyers had requested the judge to impose a six-year term.
Bankman-Fried’s appeal could take years and would need to convince a higher court that Kaplan had made significant errors during the trial that infringed on his legal rights.
US federal courts rarely side with criminal defendants attempting to overturn lower court decisions, granting fewer than 10 percent of appeals.
Former NFL star, actor, and acquitted murder suspect, O.J. Simpson has died. Simpson was found not guilty in the 1994 murder of of ex-wife and her friend in a sensational trial, watched by millions of Americans. His family said Simpson died on Wednesday after a battle with cancer. He was 76.
Mexico has appealed to the International Court of Justice to boot Ecuador from the United Nations, following a late night police raid on its embassy in Quito.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Mexico filed a complaint with the court on Thursday, calling Ecuador’s actions a violation of international law.
“The court, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, should approve the expulsion, and there should be no veto,” Lopez Obrador said at a news conference.
On social media, Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena echoed the president’s statement, saying Ecuador should be held “to account for flagrant violation of the inviolability of our embassy and attacks on our staff”.
“The letter and spirit of international law is the guide for our steps,” she wrote.
Mexico’s case centres on a controversial police raid that resulted in the capture of former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, who had been sheltering in the Mexican embassy in Quito to avoid arrest.
Embassies are considered protected spaces. Although they are not “foreign soil” — a common misconception — international law places them off limits to local police.
That, in turn, allows embassy employees to carry out their work without fear of arrest or harassment from local authorities.
The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, for example, says: “The premises of the [diplomatic] mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.”
However, this “rule of inviolability” has also been used by political dissidents and other figures to avoid arrest by taking shelter in a foreign embassy.
Glas, for instance, has been twice convicted on bribery and corruption charges. He was sentenced in 2017 to six years in prison and again in 2020 to an eight-year sentence.
Since December, Glas had sought refuge in the Mexican embassy, and shortly before his arrest on Friday, President Lopez Obrador had offered him political asylum in Mexico.
But late on Friday night, Ecuadorian police scaled the wall of the Mexican embassy, bursting through its doors and pointing a gun at one of its chief diplomatic officers.
Video released by the Mexican government on Wednesday shows that officer, diplomat Roberto Canseco, being thrown to the ground as he tried to block police vehicles leaving the embassy with Glas inside.
Mexico has since called for Ecuador’s suspension from the UN. It said the suspension should only be lifted once Ecuador issues “a public apology recognising its violations to the fundamental principles and norms of international law”.
The administration of President Lopez Obrador also severed diplomatic ties with Ecuador as a result of Glas’s arrest.
Other countries and international organisations have likewise expressed concern and outrage over the police raid, calling it a violation of international laws.
On Tuesday, United States National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, based on security footage of the police raid, his government believes “these actions were wrong”.
The Organization of American States (OAS) also released a statement saying that “strict compliance” with the international law governing diplomatic relations is “essential”.
In addition, OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro suggested the situation with Glas should have been handled differently.
Neither “the use of force, the illegal incursion into a diplomatic mission, nor the detention of an asylee are the peaceful way toward resolution of this situation”, he said.
Ecuador has defended its decision to storm Mexico’s embassy, though. The government of President Daniel Noboa has questioned whether Glas met the requirements to receive political asylum, and it reaffirmed its commitment to fighting corruption within its borders.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld also said that a public apology “is not something that is under discussion at this moment”.
Glas, meanwhile, has been on a hunger strike in his prison in Guayaquil. He was briefly hospitalised on Monday.
Rafael Correa, the former president in whose administration Glas served, said the ex-vice president had attempted suicide after his arrest.
Correa himself lives in exile in Belgium and faces a prison sentence in his native Ecuador, likewise on corruption-related charges.
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has denounced the charges he faces as an act of political retribution, as he confronts the prospect of a history-making criminal case.
Never before has a Colombian president stood trial on criminal charges. But earlier this week, the office of Colombia’s attorney general, Luz Adriana Camargo Garzon, announced that prosecutors would file a criminal complaint alleging Uribe participated in witness tampering and fraud.
On Wednesday, Uribe responded with a video statement broadcast to social media.
“The trial is being carried out for political persecution, for personal condemnation, for political revenge, without proof that I sought to bribe witnesses or deceive justice,” Uribe, 71, said.
He underscored that there was no evidence linking him to any wrongdoing, nor to any of the paramilitary groups embroiled in Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict.
“They are opening the doors of the jail without proof,” Uribe added.
His political party, the right-wing Democratic Center group, also took to social media to express support for the former president.
The group said it received the news of the pending criminal charges with “pain and sadness”.
“Like a large majority of Colombians who have believed and supported Alvaro Uribe Velez, the Democratic Center maintains its firm conviction in the innocence and honourability of the former president whose work and legacy in Colombia have been done with infinite love and a great commitment to the country,” the Democratic Center wrote in a post on Tuesday.
Former President Alvaro Uribe remains a popular right-wing figure in Colombian politics [Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters]
So far, the criminal charges have yet to be filed, and no hearing has been set.
But a conviction for witness tampering could carry a sentence of up to 12 years. On the procedural fraud charge, Uribe could face up to eight years.
Uribe has long been under scrutiny for alleged crimes committed under his administration, which lasted two terms, from 2002 to 2010.
Tuesday’s announcement stems largely from decade-old accusations that Uribe attempted to silence witnesses who tied him to the creation and activities of a right-wing paramilitary group.
In 2014, a left-wing senator named Ivan Cepeda raised concerns in the legislature that Uribe had links to the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary organisation accused of human rights abuses and drug trafficking.
Colombia has been embroiled in a six-decade-long internal conflict, with government forces, far-right paramilitaries, left-wing rebels and criminal organisations all competing for power and territory.
He was also considered a close ally of the United States during its global “war on drugs”.
But Uribe’s tactics elicited concerns about human rights violations. Under his administration, the military was accused of killing civilians in remote areas and counting them as enemy combatants, a string of incidents known as the “false positives” scandal.
After leaving office, Uribe continued to exert significant sway over Colombian politics, even leading a campaign against a 2016 peace deal with the FARC.
This week, his supporters took to social media to defend the popular former president with the hashtag #CreoEnUribe or “I believe in Uribe”.
Senator Ivan Cepeda, centre, appears in Colombia’s Congress holding a photo of an activist killed in the country’s ongoing armed conflict [Nathalia Angarita/Reuters]
After Senator Cepeda raised questions about Uribe’s alleged ties to the AUC paramilitary, prosecutors say the former president attempted to persuade witnesses to retract their statements.
One of those witnesses is expected to be Juan Guillermo Montsalve, a former paramilitary member who claims Uribe helped to expand the AUC.
Montsalve has previously accused Uribe of using his lawyer, Diego Cadena, to offer him bribes in exchange for withdrawing his testimony.
The announcement of impending criminal charges comes shortly after Camargo Garzon was elected attorney general in March.
She was one of three candidates President Gustavo Petro put before the Supreme Court for a vote. In power since 2022, Petro is considered the first left-wing leader elected in Colombia.
The Supreme Court previously launched the investigation into Uribe. Twice, prosecutors had attempted to end the investigation — and in both cases, judges had rejected their requests.
Uribe was placed under house arrest in 2020 while the investigation into the witness tampering allegations unfolded.
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