Colombian court convicts ex-president's brother for leading paramilitary death squad

A Colombian appellate court has convicted Santiago Uribe Vélez, the younger brother of former president Álvaro Uribe, of founding and commanding Los 12 Apóstoles, a paramilitary organization responsible for more than 300 selective killings, forced displacements, and disappearances in the rural municipality of Yarumal during the early 1990s. The Antioquia Superior Court sentenced him to 28 years and four months in prison for criminal conspiracy, paramilitary organization, and aggravated homicide—overturning a first-instance acquittal handed down just a year earlier.

The group itself took its name from the dozen men—ranchers, businessmen, police officers, and a priest—who began operating in 1992 under the banner of the Northern Dairy Region Self-Defense Forces. The region was experiencing growing pressure from FARC guerrillas, who had killed the Uribe brothers' father in 1983. The family controlled substantial land and cattle operations in the area. Álvaro Uribe, already a prominent liberal politician, served as governor of Antioquia from 1995 to 1997, during which time he promoted private security cooperatives known as Convivir. He would later become president from 2002 to 2010, overseeing a controversial negotiation that led to the demobilization of major paramilitary groups while simultaneously waging war against the guerrilla.

The appellate tribunal directly rejected the defense's central argument that Santiago was being prosecuted for political reasons—that he was being targeted because of his brother's prominence. The court noted that accusations against him dated back to June 1996, when a former police officer named Alexander Amaya Vargas first testified against him, a moment when Álvaro was just beginning his governorship. The timing made any coordinated political conspiracy implausible. The tribunal was particularly critical of the first-instance judge's reasoning, stating that the defense had pursued a strategy of attacking each witness's credibility in isolation rather than examining the cumulative weight of testimony.

A retired police commander named Juan Carlos Meneses emerged as the prosecution's most crucial witness. Meneses had served as police commander in Yarumal during the early 1990s and had himself supported the paramilitary group before later breaking with it. His testimony contained details that, the court found, only someone with direct participation or knowledge could possess. The appellate judges rejected the first-instance judge's suggestion that Meneses was unreliable or motivated by personal gain. They noted that he had maintained his account even while living in exile, and that apparent contradictions the lower court had seized upon were not actually contradictions at all when examined in proper context alongside other witnesses' statements.

The conviction hinges significantly on the killing of Camilo Barrientos Durán, a bus driver shot on the road between Campamento and Yarumal. The first-instance judge had characterized this death as a personal dispute unrelated to the paramilitary group's broader operations. The appellate court rejected this framing entirely. Multiple witnesses testified that Barrientos appeared on a list of people suspected of collaborating with the FARC and marked for execution. Barrientos himself had learned of his inclusion on the list and had even accompanied a municipal commission to inquire why his name appeared there. As an intermunicipal bus driver, he had allegedly facilitated the delivery of supplies to guerrilla forces. According to the court's findings, Santiago Uribe obtained this information, instructed Meneses to profile Barrientos, and requested his help in ensuring the killing proceeded without complications. Uribe also discussed the matter with a trusted operative known as Rodrigo before the murder took place.

The tribunal's language throughout the decision emphasizes that Los 12 Apóstoles operated as a systematic enterprise of elimination, not a collection of isolated incidents. The group targeted people deemed undesirable—suspected guerrilla sympathizers, informants, or simply those who posed a threat to the paramilitary's control of the region. The court found that Santiago Uribe did not merely participate in this structure; he created it and directed it from his family's estate, La Carolina. The appellate judges were unsparing in their critique of the first-instance judgment, suggesting the lower court had fundamentally misunderstood or misapplied the evidence before it. This conviction, now final at the appellate level, marks the first time a member of the Uribe family has been held judicially accountable for paramilitary connections—a shadow that has long hung over Colombian politics.