Washington DC lobby firm DCI Group embarked on a disinformation campaign in defense of Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe, who is under house arrest on fraud and bribery charges.
Following a $40,000/month deal with Uribe’s son Tomas, DCI Group announced it would be “the principal U.S. strategic communications firm” to save the public image of Uribe, an admitted former associate of the now-defunct Medellin Cartel and alleged war criminal.
Uribe’s house arrest “arbitrary”
In an August 24 announcement, the firm falsely claimed that a Supreme Court ruling to place Uribe under house arrest was “arbitrary” and “has raised serious legal and constitutional question stemming from the increasingly politicized Colombian judiciary.”
DCI Group additionally claimed “Uribe’s case has provoked widespread public outrage in Colombia,” which it didn’t.
A recent poll even indicated that the vast majority agreed with the former president’s house arrest.
Uribe spending $40K/month to lobby his way out of court?
Classy: smearing the alleged victim
Senator Ivan Cepeda (Image: Senate)
On the website “Free Uribe,” the firm falsely claimed that ‘all of the accusations against Alvaro Uribe originated from… Senator Ivan Cepeda,” while in fact they come from the Supreme Court, which found evidence indicating that the far-right former president was bribing witnesses in order to file fraudulent criminal charges against the opposition lawmaker.
The website went as far as to claim that “Cepeda and the [now-demobilized guerrilla group] FARC have shared a common goal:… “a Marxist state.”
According to the website, the opposition senator even had “a relationship” with the FARC “during the period of active terrorism” of the former guerrillas.
Cepeda was part of a congressional committee that supported peace talks between former President Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC while they were still in arms.
How Colombia’s former president ended up with one foot in prison
Uribe’s political downfall
Former President Alvaro Uribe )Image: Democratic Center)
DCI Group was able to make money off Uribe’s political downfall after the former president got himself in unprecedented legal trouble for filing bogus charges against the opposition senator.
Uribe falsely claimed that the opposition senator had bribed former paramilitaries who have testified the former president co-founded a death squad that left 4,000 victims in the 1990s.
The far-right former Medellin Cartel associate was forced to end his career in politics to evade the Supreme Court and have his trial be transferred to the notoriously politicized Prosecutor General’s Office.
While the DC lobbyists are trying to smear those who have not yet been assassinated and pose a legal liability to Uribe, the Supreme Court continues to investigate the former president’s alleged involvement in three massacres and a homicide.