President Petro believes Uribe is responsible for his own 12-year sentence.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro asserted this Friday that former President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) is the person primarily responsible for the criminal proceedings that led to his 12-year sentence under house arrest, stating that he himself "constructed the strategy" that has him in this judicial situation today.

"The one who constructed the strategy for the conviction of former President Álvaro Uribe was the same former president who initiated the process by denouncing Iván Cepeda, and then, put himself in the hands of the judge, by resigning from the Senate," the president wrote in X.

With that message, the head of state distanced himself from any connection with the sentence handed down yesterday by Judge Sandra Heredia, who convicted Uribe of procedural fraud and bribery in criminal proceedings, in a case he himself initiated in 2012 when he accused Senator Iván Cepeda of alleged witness tampering.

$822,000 fine and disqualification for more than eight years

Petro's statement was in response to Jerónimo Uribe, the former president's son, who suggested that the sentence was politically motivated and part of a government strategy: "This, with all due respect to Mr. Jerónimo, is slander," the president responded.

Sandra Heredia, head of the 44th Criminal Circuit Court of Bogotá, sentenced Uribe to 12 years in prison, a fine of more than 3.4 billion Colombian pesos (about $822,000), and also banned him from holding public office for more than eight years.

In the ruling, Heredia ordered the immediate arrest of 73-year-old Uribe, to be served at home in Rionegro, a town in the northwestern department of Antioquia. His defense team will appeal on August 13.

The sentence was not without criticism from other former presidents such as Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002), Uribe's direct predecessor in government, who expressed his disagreement with the sentence.

Read also Álvaro Uribe becomes the first former Colombian president to be criminally convicted. AGENCIES

"The judge, in sentencing President Álvaro Uribe, whose presumption of innocence remains intact, went too far," Pastrana said on X.