The Hindu : International : U.S. denies Uribe's drug links

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Wednesday, Aug 04, 2004

International

International

U.S. denies Uribe's drug links

BOGOTA (Colombia): The U.S. and Colombian Governments teamed up on Monday to fend off accusations in a recently declassified 1991 U.S. military intelligence report that link the Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe, to powerful drug traffickers more than a decade ago. The U.S. State Department as well as the Pentagon rushed to support Mr. Uribe, who is a strong ally of Washington in the war on drugs. ``We completely disavow the allegations about Uribe. It's not credible information,'' the State Department spokesman, Robert Zimmerman, said on Monday by telephone from Washington, noting that Mr. Uribe has a record of strong opposition to drug trafficking. The document was prepared by the Defence Intelligence Agency 13 years ago, when Mr. Uribe was a Colombian Senator. It was released on Monday by the National Security Archive, a private research group based in Washington that used the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to make the document public. The report placed Mr. Uribe as No. 82 on a list of 104 ``important Colombian drug traffickers.''

— AP

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