Jorge Alberto Uribe Echavarría (born October 30, 1940 in Medellín) is a Colombian politician and businessman.
He was educated at primary and secondary schools in Colombia, with two years spent at Culver Military Academy in the United States. He completed a first degree in economics at George Washington University in the USA and did post-graduate work in international marketing at Besançon University in France.
He served as his country's minister of defense, succeeding Martha Lucía Ramírez, who was Colombia's first female defence minister. Prior to that appointment, he served as Finland's honorary consul in Bogotá for a period of ten years.
Jorge Alberto Uribe Echavarría is not related to fellow medellinense President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, but the two are old friends.
According to one of the cables released by WikiLeaks, on November 16, Defense Minister Mr. Jorge Alberto Uribe requested a meeting with the Ambassador to explain an article in El Nuevo Herald that claimed he had made a conjugal visit to a woman imprisoned in Medellin. The woman, Dora Adriana Alzate Restrepo, was arrested and sentenced to nine years in jail when authorities found heroin in her suitcase bound for Miami in the Medellin airport in February 2003. Uribe told the Ambassador that he had had a ten-year, personal relationship with Alzate, whom he met while he was president of Delima Marsh and she worked for an associate company. On the day of her arrest, Uribe and Alzate were traveling separately to the U.S. from Medellin and were chatting in the airport. Alzate was detained by security and Uribe boarded the plane unaware of her fate. After her arrest, Uribe said that he visited her in prison once and spoke with her on the telephone once.
He emphasized he had no prior knowledge of her drug trafficking activities and has not had any contact with her since becoming Minister. Uribe subsequently called the Ambassador back to tell him that he had talked to President Uribe, who had given him full support.