In Colombia, an appeals court has overturned the conviction of former president and U.S. ally Álvaro Uribe for witness tampering and bribery. Uribe had been sentenced to 12 years of house arrest for allegedly bribing imprisoned members of paramilitary groups to retract damaging testimony exposing Uribe’s ties to right-wing, U.S.-backed paramilitary groups. Uribe ruled Colombia from 2002 to 2010, during which time there were thousands of extrajudicial killings of civilians, who were then purposely mislabeled as rebel fighters in what became known as the “false positives” scandal.