Former President Alvaro Uribe on Monday responded to accusations from former Supreme Court President Cesar Julio Valencia Copete that he lied regarding a 2007 phone conversation between the two men.
The judge accused the then-president of phoning him to talk about a case against Uribe’s cousin, Mario Uribe. The spat between the two men was re-ignited Monday, when Uribe issued another denial of the incident, claiming that he had not asked about his cousin.
Valencia on Monday responded that “former President Uribe is not telling the truth when he states that I never informed the Supreme Court’s Board of Governors that [in the phone call] … he had also referred to his cousin Mario Uribe.”
Uribe retaliated via Twitter, and implied that Valencia was changing his story regarding the conversation. The former president Tweeted that “Magistrate Valencia Copote said I didn’t pressure him, now [he says] that I asked him, he never told the Board of Governors of the Supreme Court.”
Uribe sued Valencia for slander in early 2008 after the magistrate claimed that the president called him to ask whether Mario Uribe would be investigated for his alleged ties to paramilitary death squads.
Mario Uribe is currently in jail on charges of collaborating with paramilitaries.