In an interview with W Radio on Tuesday, Nicolas Castro, a university student accused of threatening Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s son Jeronimo via Facebook, claimed that the Prosecutor General’s Office has no evidence to link him to the allegations.
“What they found was a comment of mine [in the Facebook group] and since then they started to link me [with the creation of the group]. They decided that I had created the group based on a conversation of mine that was taken out of context,” Castro said.
After Colombia’s national intelligence agency DAS was alerted to the existence of a Facebook group entitled “I will kill Jeronimo Alberto Uribe, son of Alvaro Uribe”, it turned to the FBI for assistance in locating the people responsible for its creation. On December 1, 2009, following an investigation of cached versions of the site and related IP addresses, Castro was arrested on charges of incitement to commit a crime.
At the time of the arrest, the police said they “suspected” him of “knowing something about the group.”
The university student reiterated in the interview that it was never his intention to threaten Jeronimo Uribe or invite others to participate in the group.
Castro’s claim that the allegations against him were exaggerated is supported by developments in court. During a preparatory hearing on March 24, the judge overturned almost all the evidence against him and is expected in the next few days to decide to set him free, according to La Silla Vacia.
Castro said that the prosecutor general should be held accountable for an arrest that was based on “a very slight suspicion” and that Colombia should be “careful when censoring opinions.”
