Colombian former President Álvaro Uribe has been sentenced to 12 years of house arrest for witness tampering and a fraud charge.

The 73-year-old is the first former president in the country’s history to be convicted of a crime. He has also been barred from public office and fined $578,000 (£435,000).

Uribe, who maintains his innocence, told a judge in Bogotá he would appeal against his conviction. He said the case was meant to “destroy a voice for the democratic opposition”.

He was president from 2002-2010 and remains popular in Colombia, despite being accused of working with right-wing paramilitaries to destroy leftist rebel groups. A claim he denies.

The former president was convicted of two charges on Monday in a witness-tampering case that has run for around 13 years.

Two jailed ex-paramilitaries gave evidence saying Uribe’s former lawyer Diego Cadena had offered them money to testify in Uribe’s favour.

Cadena, who is also facing charges, has denied the accusations and testified, along with several other ex-paramilitaries, on Uribe’s behalf.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned Uribe’s conviction, accusing Colombia’s judiciary of being weaponised.

The former president’s “only crime has been to tirelessly fight and defend his homeland,” Rubio wrote on the social media site, X.

Paramilitary groups emerged in Colombia in the 1980s with the stated goal of taking on poverty and marginalisation. They fought the Marxist-inspired guerrilla groups that had themselves battled the state two decades prior.

Many of the armed groups which developed in the standoff made an income from the cocaine trade. Deadly fighting between them and with the state has produced lasting rivalries for trafficking routes and resources.

Uribe was praised by Washington for his hard-line approach to left-wing Farc rebels – but was a divisive politician, who critics say did little to tackle the inequality and poverty in the country.

Farc signed a peace deal with Uribe’s successor in 2016, though violence from disarmed groups persists in Colombia.