A Colombian court today overturned the conviction of the country’s former president Alvaro Uribe, who was found guilty of corruption and bribery for allegedly pressuring witnesses in a case involving his ties to paramilitary groups.

The 73-year-old leader of the Colombian right became in August the country’s first former president to be convicted in a criminal case. He was sentenced to 12 years of house arrest. It is currently unclear whether the victims will appeal, meaning the case will go to the Supreme Court.

The judge has not yet ruled on whether he will remain in custody.

Uribe was the country’s president between 2002-10.

The charges against him relate to allegations that he ordered a lawyer to bribe jailed members of paramilitary organizations to deny allegations that he had ties to him.

The paramilitaries were paid by ranchers, landowners and merchants to protect them from Colombia’s leftist rebels. The “truth commission” however estimates that they are responsible for almost half of the 450,000 dead in the civil war between 1985-2018.

Uribe argued that the charges against him constituted political persecution. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the former president was a victim of the “tooling” of Colombian judges, and current President Gustavo Petro responded by calling for respect for the independence of the judiciary.