The Bogota appeals court ordered the release of Colombia’s former president Alvaro Uribe while considering the appeal of his fraud and bribery conviction.

Uribe’s defense attorney, Jaime Granados, had requested the suspension of the 12-year prison sentence that could be served at home, claiming that it violated the former president’s right to dignity, due process and the presumption of innocence.

The court agreed to suspend the sentence for the duration of the appeals process while maintaining the conviction.

Senator Ivan Cepeda, one of the victims of Uribe’s fraud and bribery practices, said that he and other victims “respect, but do not agree with the decision.”

Cepeda told press that “we are certain that the convicted former president has been pressuring the justice system and campaigning against us.”

“We believe that the measure imposed by judge Heredia in some way was a measure to protect us” against apparently ongoing efforts of Uribe’s convicted fixer, Diego Cadena, to continue smearing the former president’s opponents in court.

The former president and Cadena were convicted because they had bribed demobilized paramilitary fighters to obstruct investigations into the Uribe family’s alleged ties to paramilitary groups.

These investigations followed a debate in the Senate in which Cepeda revealed Uribe’s ties to the Medellin Cartel and testimonies of demobilized members of the Bloque Metro paramilitary group, who claimed that the former president and his brother Santiago were involved in the creation of their group on one of the Uribe family’s estates in the Antioquia province.