FORMER Colombian president Alvaro Uribe was sentenced to 12 years’ house arrest on Friday for witness tampering and bribery.

Mr Uribe was found guilty last week of having sought to bribe and influence witnesses who testified that he had links to far-right paramilitary groups when governor of Antioquia in the 1990s.

Mr Uribe was president from 2002-10, a period coinciding with the height of the “false positives” scandal, when Colombian soldiers murdered thousands of innocent people they had lured to remote areas with promises of work, dressing their corpses up as guerilla fighters in order to claim cash rewards and promotions.

He has vowed to appeal against the verdict. Judge Sandra Heredia denied his defence team’s request that he remain free while appealing, saying it would be easy for Mr Uribe to flee the country. As president, he was a close ally of the United States.