Bogotá (AFP) – A Colombian judge on Friday sentenced still-powerful former president Alvaro Uribe to 12 years of house arrest, capping a long and contentious career that defined Colombian politics for a generation.
Uribe, aged 73, received the maximum possible sentence after being found guilty of witness tampering, a legal source told AFP.
The sentence, which is due to be publicly announced later on Friday, marks the first time in Colombia's history that a former president has been convicted of a crime and sentenced.
Uribe led Colombia from 2002 to 2010 and led a relentless military campaign against drug cartels and the FARC guerrilla army.
He remains popular in Colombia, despite being accused by critics of working with armed right-wing paramilitaries to destroy leftist rebel groups.
And he still wields considerable power over conservative politics in Colombia, playing kingmaker in the selection of new party leaders.
He was found guilty of asking right-wing paramilitaries to lie about their alleged links to him.
A judge on Monday found him guilty on two charges: interfering with witnesses and "procedural fraud."
Uribe insists he is innocent and is expected to appeal the ruling.
A law-and-order hardliner, Uribe was a close ally of the United States and retains ties to the American right.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier decried Uribe's prosecution, claiming, without providing evidence, that it represented "the weaponization of Colombia's judicial branch by radical judges."
Recent opinion polls revealed him to be the South American country's best loved politician.
In 2019, thousands protested in Medellin and capital Bogota when he was first indicted in the case.
On Monday, a smaller group of followers gathered outside the court wearing masks fashioned after his image and chanting: "Uribe, innocent!"
The investigation against Uribe began in 2018 and has had numerous twists and turns, with several attorneys general seeking to close the case.
It gained new impetus under Attorney General Luz Camargo, picked by current President Gustavo Petro -- himself a former guerrilla and a political arch-foe of Uribe.
More than 90 witnesses testified in the trial, which opened in May 2024.
During the trial, prosecutors produced evidence of at least one ex-paramilitary fighter who said he was contacted by Uribe to change his story.
The former president is also under investigation in other matters.
He has testified before prosecutors in a preliminary probe into a 1997 paramilitary massacre of farmers when he was governor of the western Antioquia department.
A complaint has also been filed against him in Argentina, where universal jurisdiction allows for the prosecution of crimes committed anywhere in the world.
That complaint stems from Uribe's alleged involvement in the more than 6,000 executions and forced disappearances of civilians by the Colombian military when he was president.
Uribe insists his trial is a product of "political vengeance."