Colombia’s prosecutor general announced that she would investigate allegations that ex-president Uribe paid the FARC $100 million for the release of Ingrid Betancourt in 2008 Tuesday, while Uribe denied the charge against him.
“We will be looking deeper to see if these claims initiate an investigation,” said Vivian Morales, Colombia’s prosecutor general.
Morales was referring to allegations raised by the Ecuadorean documentary “Operation Jaque: A Not So Perfect Move” which asserts that Uribe negotiated with two FARC guerrillas known as “Cesar” and “Gafas” for the release of former Colombian Senator Betancourt, who was captured by FARC forces in 2002.
The documentary argues that Uribe made a payment of at least $100 million to the FARC and used the operation as a political ploy to ensure the election of his defense minister Juan Manuel Santos to the presidency. Santos was elected as the president of Colombia in 2010.
Uribe angrily denounced the film as offensive to the “intelligence and professionalism of the armed forces.” Uribe linked a statement by Luis Plata on his Twitter account that stated “not one penny was spent, not a single cartridge was fired, no one was hurt, and not one person died” in the rescue of Betancourt.
Allegations of payments made to the FARC for the release of Betancourt have been made before. On July 4, 2008 Radio Suisse Romande reported that the U.S. paid $20 million for Betancourt’s release. The Colombian government has denied this allegation.