The Supreme Court of Justice confirmed on Thursday, June 4, the sentence of 28 years and three months in prison against Santiago Uribe Vélez, brother of former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, for the crimes of conspiracy to commit a crime and homicide, both aggravated, for participating in the creation and financing of the paramilitary group 'The Twelve Apostles' in Antioquia. Although the ruling is final, Uribe Vélez's defense will present an appeal against the decision.

First modification: 06/05/2026 - 20:43

A long judicial saga involving one of the most powerful surnames in Colombian public life added what could be its definitive chapter on Thursday, June 4.

The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia confirmed the sentence of 28 years and three months in prison against the rancher Santiago Uribe Vélez, brother of former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010).

The highest Colombian court ratified the ruling in the second instance, which found him guilty of the crimes of conspiracy to commit a crime and homicide, both aggravated, for his role in the creation and financing of the paramilitary group 'The Twelve Apostles' - created in 1992 in the municipality of Yarumal, in the department of Antioquia, in the northwest of the country -, and for being involved in the murder of Camilo Barrientos, in 1994.

The Supreme Court rejected the objections of Uribe Vélez's defense against the sentence handed down by the Superior Court of Antioquia on November 25, 2025 and considered the brother of the former right-wing president as the "criminally responsible co-author" of the events of which he is accused, being "crimes against humanity."

Although the high court considered that "there is no appeal" against its decision, defense lawyer Jaime Granados, also Álvaro Uribe Vélez's lawyer in his legal cases, promised to continue "defending Santiago's innocence, since the 16 years of knowledge of this case allow us to warn that he is being unjustly convicted."

As reported this Friday, June 5, by the Colombian newspaper 'El Tiempo', Granados asked the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court to accept an extraordinary appeal for cassation, which is a judicial tool whose objective is to review whether the lower courts correctly applied the law, and not to re-evaluate the facts already judged.

The keys to the Supreme Court ruling against Uribe Vélez

The beginning of the investigation against Santiago Uribe Vélez dates back to 1995, three years after the creation of the paramilitary group 'The Twelve Apostles', an organization made up of ranchers, businessmen, police officers and a priest who carried out, according to the 605-page ruling of the Supreme Court, "criminal actions of social cleansing" in various municipalities in the north of the department of Antioquia.

Although the case was initially archived in 1999, it was reactivated in 2010 when new testimonies became known that linked the rancher Uribe Vélez as the leader of the group. However, it was not until February 2016 that the younger brother of the former Colombian president was preventively imprisoned for two years, while the first instance ruling in November 2024 acquitted him because, despite recognizing the existence of 'The Twelve Apostles', the judge found procedural errors and expressed doubts about the main witness in the case.

A year later, then, the second instance sentence came, by the Superior Court of Antioquia, which set the sentence of 28 years and 4 months in prison, ratified on Thursday by the Supreme Court.

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In its ruling, the highest court rejected the defense's consideration that the crimes had already prescribed and that Uribe Vélez should not have been tried for them. On the contrary, the Court stressed that the crimes attributed to the rancher were "outrages especially harmful to human dignity that seriously degrade the most precious interests of human beings" and that "they were part of the systematic and generalized attack against the civilian population of the north of the department of Antioquia", therefore they constitute crimes against humanity.

For the high court, in the analysis of the evidence and testimonies, "the leadership that the defendant exercised over the criminal group, together with the public force, to coordinate selective murders" was evidenced and, contrary to what was stated by the defense, it considered that the Superior Court of Antioquia acted correctly when analyzing the testimonies as a whole, and not separately as the court of first instance did, an error that translates into a "partial and fragmented" analysis to "magnify alleged internal contradictions and accessory details".

Read alsoColombia: Álvaro Uribe's brother is sentenced to 28 years for paramilitarism

Similarly, the Supreme Court rejected, due to lack of evidence, the theory put forward by the defense about an alleged transnational "plot" – which would supposedly involve the Government of Venezuela, drug traffickers and senators opposed to Uribism – to obtain the guilt of Santiago Uribe Vélez; and also rejected the request to acquit the brother of the former Colombian president for the murder of bus driver Camilo Barrientos, pointing out that his name was on a "black list" of 'The Twelve Apostles', so Uribe Vélez, as leader, had control over those lists.

A report from the Information Analysis Group (GRAI) of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), published in November 2025, indicated that the activities of 'The 12 Apostles' resulted in at least 525 homicides, with the municipalities of Yarumal (181 victims), Valdivia (134) and Santa Rosa de Osos (89) being the most affected.

The shadow of paramilitarism surrounds former President Uribe

After learning of the Supreme Court's decision against his brother Santiago, former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez stated that it is "a devastating issue for my family," which "is very dejected" by a ruling that he considered "very unfair."

However, the judicial ruling once again extends the shadow of paramilitarism over the former president, who has also been denounced for his alleged links with these illegal armed groups in his years as governor of Antioquia (1995-1997, a period in which his brother commanded 'The Twelve Apostles').

One of these causes indirectly relates it to the El Aro massacre, in which 17 peasants were murdered in October 1997, a process that was reactivated at the beginning of this year.

Other allegations point to the boost that Álvaro Uribe Vélez gave, as governor of Antioquia, to the private security cooperatives 'Convivir', organizations that, according to the JEP, functioned as a kind of legal front for massacres and selective homicides coordinated by paramilitary groups.

Despite this, until now the existence of links between the former president and these armed organizations has not been proven.

For his part, in his reaction to the ruling, the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, assured in his X account that Colombia must "free itself from the paramilitary governance left in the northern region of Antioquia" by the group of 'The Twelve Apostles'.

"I want to turn that page and guarantee a national agreement that passes so that that era is not repeated. The differences between Colombians are not resolved by gutting the other but by building a safe and permanent path of coexistence. The methods of Santiago Uribe Vélez should not be repeated again in Colombia," he concluded.

With EFE and local media

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