(Corrects president's name to Petro, not Uribe in paragraph 7)
By Luis Jaime Acosta
BOGOTA (Reuters) -A Colombian court on Tuesday struck down former president Alvaro Uribe's convictions for fraud and bribery, in a case over alleged witness-tampering that saw the influential right-wing politician handed a 12-year house arrest sentence earlier this year.
The court is still set to decide on the status of Uribe's sentence.
Uribe, who led Colombia's executive from 2002 to 2010, was sentenced in early August,
making him Colombia's first-ever former president to be criminally convicted.
It was not immediately clear whether those classed as victims in the case would appeal the ruling, which would take the case up to Colombia's highest court.
The case against Uribe revolves around allegations that he ordered a lawyer to bribe jailed paramilitaries to discredit claims he had ties to their organizations.
The paramilitaries, funded by cattle ranchers, landowners and merchants to protect themselves from leftist guerrillas, are estimated by a truth commission to be responsible for nearly half of more than 450,000 people killed between 1985 and 2018.
Uribe has blasted the accusations as political persecution, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Uribe was a victim of the "weaponization" of Colombian judges, prompting current President Gustavo Petro to call for respect for the independence of the judiciary.
The ruling comes amid a feud between Petro and the Trump administration, which has threatened tariffs against the South American nation over accusations of involvement in drug trafficking.
Trump earlier this year raised tariffs on Brazil over its conviction of political ally Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta, writing by Sarah Morland)
