Former Supreme Court President Cesar Julio Valencia Copete says that former President Alvaro Uribe is not telling the truth about a 2007 phone call in which Uribe allegedly asked for information about a case against his cousin, former Senator Mario Uribe, El Espectador reports.
In a statement released today Uribe said, amongst other claims, that regarding the phone conversation “I called about the ‘Tasmania’ case [a case involving a paramilitary known as ‘Tasmania’], never to speak about senators. The judge informed the Board of Governors of my call about the Tasmania case, and did not make any reports that I had called in reference to senators.”
Copete said in response 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 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.
Former President Uribe counters on his official Facebook page that “not a single judge of the Court can confirm that I called Copete to talk to him about the respective subject.”