Colombia’s Prosecutor General will investigate allegations by retired Colonel Pedro Manuel Benavides of a plot to implicate Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s brother Santiago Uribe in dealings with Antioquian paramilitaries.
Benavides Tuesday supplied prosecutors with a 50 page document, in which he provides testimony that former Major Juan Carlos Meneses bought him a plane ticket to Bogota, where the colonel met with the Comba brothers, who offered him cash to sully the Uribes’ name.
Meneses alleged Sunday that Santiago Uribe led a paramilitary death squad in the early 1990s. The Comba brothers head drug trafficking organization “Los Rastrojos.”
Benavides alleged earlier Tuesday that the Comba brothers offered him over $250,000 to implicate Santiago Uribe with the paramilitary.
In face of the attempted bribery allegations, Colombian authorities did not rule out issuing an Interpol alert for Meneses, who reportedly lives between Caracas and Argentina.
According to Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva, the allegations against Santiago Uribe are part of a Venezuelan plot to undermine Colombia’s government.