BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — An appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of Colombian ex-President Álvaro Uribe for bribery and witness tampering in a historic case that gripped the South American nation and tarnished the conservative strongman’s legacy.

Uribe, 73, has denied any wrongdoing. He was sentenced to 12 years in house arrest in August following a nearly six-month trial in which prosecutors presented evidence that he attempted to influence witnesses who accused the law-and-order leader of having links to a paramilitary group in the 1990s.

The court on Tuesday said the conviction had “structural deficiencies,” used vague premises and lacked comprehensive analysis.

Uribe, who governed from 2002 to 2010, has called his conviction political persecution, claiming that the judge was biased against him. In the appeal, his lawyers questioned the validity of the evidence and argued that the former president’s responsibility was not “unequivocally” proven.

Prosecutors and victims can appeal Tuesday’s ruling to Colombia’s Supreme Court.

The former president governed with strong support from the United States. He is a polarizing figure in Colombia, where many credit him for saving the country from becoming a failed state, while others associate him with human rights violations and the rise of paramilitary groups in the 1990s.

The judge in Uribe’s original trial said she had seen enough evidence to determine that Uribe conspired with a lawyer to coax three imprisoned former paramilitary members into changing testimony they had provided to Ivan Cepeda, a leftist senator who had launched an investigation into Uribe’s alleged ties to a paramilitary group.

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