President Alvaro Uribe rejected allegations in a leaked CIA report that his army chief collaborated extensively with right-wing militias accused of some of the worst atrocities in Colombia's long-running civil conflict.
In a front-page story on Sunday, the Los Angeles Times cited what it called a new CIA intelligence report linking General Mario Montoya, a close ally of the president, to a paramilitary group headed by one of the nation's biggest drug traffickers, whose extradition has been requested by the US.
The CIA document, which according to the newspaper was based on intelligence gathered by an allied Western agency, said that as head of the army's 4th brigade Montoya worked with the militia to carry out a deadly raid in a poor neighborhood in the city of Medellin in 2002.
At least 14 people were killed and several more believed disappeared during the high-profile sweep known as Operation Orion, which was heralded as a campaign to eliminate rebel influence in the crime-infested shantytowns ringing Colombia's second-largest city, but also cleared the way for the militias to gain control of the city's lucrative cocaine trade.
In a statement on Sunday, Uribe said the "Colombian government rejects the accusations made by foreign intelligence agencies" against Montoya "through press leaks without any evidence having previously been presented to Colombia's government or justice system."
In an interview published on Sunday on the Web site of newspaper El Tiempo, Montoya denied what he called baseless assertions contained in the Times article and challenged the "newspaper, the CIA or any other intelligence agency, if they have evidence against me, to present it to Colombian authorities so I can be investigated."
Human rights groups criticized Uribe's dismissal of the allegations against his loyal adviser.
"These allegations are consistent with the record of many Colombian military units, which have historically tolerated and supported paramilitaries," Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Washington-based Human Rights Watch, said in an e-mail.
"Instead of rejecting the allegations out of hand, Uribe should take them seriously and call for a thorough investigation in the civilian justice system," he said.
Montoya, 57, who rose through the ranks of the army, is the highest ranking Colombian official yet to be touched by the widening paramilitary scandal, which has rocked the US-backed Uribe government and led to the arrest so far of eight pro-government congressmen and a governor, and forced the resignation of the nation's foreign minister.
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