Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe on Wednesday accused Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) spy agency of participating in a plot against him, a day after resigning his Senate seat to face a bribery and fraud investigation by the Supreme Court.
Uribe, a mentor of Colombian president-elect Ivan Duque, is under investigation by the court over allegations that he made false accusations and tampered with witnesses in a case that he himself started by making similar accusations against a leftist senator.
Known for a hardline military crackdown on Marxist guerrillas during his 2002-to-2010 government, Uribe cited on Twitter what he said were claims that recordings in the case were made by MI6.
Photo: Reuters
“There are repeated accusations that the recordings were made by the British agency MI6, friends of Juan Manuel Santos. Foreign authorities in a ruse against me,” Uribe said.
He did not specify exactly which recordings he was referring to or the source of the accusations.
However, in a statement on Tuesday, the Supreme Court referenced intercepted telephone calls between a lawyer and a former official that it said had plotted to undermine the case against Uribe.
A spokeswoman for the UK Foreign Office declined to comment on Uribe’s tweet.
MI6, which is accountable to UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt, did not respond to calls requesting comment.
Uribe originally tweeted that it was the British Security Service (MI5), the domestic intelligence service, which was involved, before correcting himself.
A spokeswoman for Santos declined to comment.
Santos was once a close ally of Uribe until they had a bitter falling out over a peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that resulted in a 2016 deal signed by Santos to end their five-decade uprising.
Uribe resigned his Senate seat on Tuesday after the Supreme Court asked him to testify in the criminal case, which could result in jail time.
It is the first time that the tribunal, which is charged with investigating criminal allegations against lawmakers, has called a former president to testify.
The 66-year-old is seen as the power behind the throne of Duque, 41, who won last month’s presidential election as the candidate for Uribe’s right-wing Democratic Center party.
Uribe’s exit from the Senate just two weeks before Duque’s Aug. 7 inauguration could throw the new government into disarray. It also removes from Congress a vocal critic of the peace deal who had called for tougher treatment of former FARC rebels.
The case that spurred the Supreme Court investigation began in 2012, when Uribe accused leftist Colombian Senator Ivan Cepeda of orchestrating a plot to falsely link him to right-wing paramilitary groups. Uribe denies any such ties.
However, the court in February said that Cepeda had collected information from former members of paramilitary groups in the course of his Senate work and that he had not paid or pressured them.
Instead, it was Uribe who was at fault, the court said.
The activities continued even after the February ruling, the court said in its Tuesday statement.
Cepeda hailed the Supreme Court’s decision to press Uribe to testify.
“This decision marks a historic milestone in the judicial and political life of the nation,” he told reporters. “Uribe was considered untouchable and all-powerful until yesterday. This marks a very important precedent.”
Uribe’s lawyer Jaime Granados could not be reached for comment.
Uribe and his family have long been accused of involvement with paramilitary forces by the opposition, but previous investigations have borne little fruit. The family has also denied any such links.
Paramilitary groups in Colombia — originally funded by landowners eager to protect themselves from rebel fighters — became dreaded death squads linked to rural massacres, drug trafficking and sexual violence.
The demobilization of the United Self-Defenders of Colombia paramilitary group during Uribe’s term in office was widely criticized as ineffective. The 50-year conflict in Colombia has killed more than 220,000 people.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion