Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was sentenced by a judge on Friday to 12 years of house arrest for abuse of process and bribery of a public official, in a long-running case over connections to former right-wing paramilitaries.

Former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe has been sentenced to 12 years of house arrest for witness tampering and procedural fraud. The sentence, delivered in the first instance, also includes a fine and a multi-year ban on holding political office,

I t took Judge Sandra Heredia over ten hours on July 28th to read her judgment in the case against Álvaro Uribe, Colombia’s president from 2002 to 2010. Her verdict, when it came, was that he was guilty of arranging the bribing of witnesses and of perverting justice.