President Alvaro Uribe said he was concerned about a Facebook group called “I will kill Jeronimo Uribe, son of Alvaro Uribe,” but did not “harbour hatred or resentment” towards its alleged creator Nicolas Castro.
“How is a parent not going to worry when their son receives a death threat; put yourself in my situation as a father,” explained the president on Wednesday, “[the Internet] should not be used for criminal activity or for supporting a crime.”
Uribe added that “Neither my children nor I harbour hatred or resentment” over this case.
The government’s reaction caused controversy in Colombia after Nicolas Castro, a 23-year-old university student, was sent to the notorious La Picota prison in Bogota after the FBI helped track the creation of the group to his IP address. However, during a preparatory hearing on March 24, the judge overturned almost all the evidence against Castro, who has always vehemently denied creating the group.
“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.
For his part, President Alvaro Uribe said that he could not sanction any “incitement to murder,” and also criticized the use of the social networking website to promote violence against ex presidential candidate Antanas Mockus.