Colombian opposition senator and hostage mediator Piedad Cordoba denied Wednesday accusations by the former director of France’s press agency that she had asked France to allow the FARC to open an office in Paris in 2007.
Former AFP boss Jacques Thomet, who wrote a book about former hostage Ingrid Betancourt, said that Cordoba had requested the FARC office while discussing the captivity of Ingrid Betancourt with the French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
“I reject the accusations made against me by Jacques Thomet,” Cordoba said at a press conference Wednesday.
Cordoba said the conversation she had with Sarkozy focused on negotiating the liberation of FARC hostages.
She said she did not seek intervention “in favor of any group, organization or individual unconnected to the humanitarian mission of the unilateral release of the hostages in Colombia. “
Cordoba stressed that journalists and Venezuelan officials were present as witnesses at the meeting El Espectador reported.
Cordoba has been mediating the release of hostages held by the FARC on and off over the past few years and is currently presiding ‘Colombians for peace’, a group of prominent Colombians that seek a political solution for Colombia’s violent conflict.
The Senator said she considered the accusation an “attack” that seeks to generate distrust of her humanitarian commitment to peace.
Cordoba said she planned to take “appropriate legal action” against Thomet.