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Uribe joins Murdoch in News Corp

uribe

Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, currently being investigated for illegal wire-tapping, was on Tuesday nominated to the board of media giant News Corp, whose UK tabloid News of the World was last year shut down over a phone-hacking scandal.

Uribe was nominated for approval at the meeting along with former U.S. Labor Secretary, Elaine Chao, to replace two directors who plan to step down following the event.

The former president is currently being investigated in relation to the illegal wiretapping of human rights activists, journalists, Supreme Court magistrates and politicians, while his former chief of staff is in jail awaiting trial for the offenses, and his former secret police chief fled the country before charges were filed.

At Tuesday's News Corp board meeting, increased pressure was put on media tycoon Rupert Murdoch to step down as chairman due to his handling of last year's phone-hacking scandal in the UK when News Corp's London-based tabloid, News of the World, was embroiled in a high profile phone-hacking scandal, resulting in around 50 arrests and criminal charges against eight of the tabloid's editors and journalists.

Uribe's nomination was announced in September when Murdoch called him "a transformative figure who saved his country's democratic institutions, revitalized its economy and restored the security of its people" and would "provide important insights into Latin America for our directors."

In 2009 Claudia Duque, an investigative journalist for Colombia's Radio Nizkor, discovered a memorandum which confirmed that threats she had received including one to kill, rape and torture her then 10-year-old daughter, "scattering her fingers around the house," were by the secret police (DAS) who reported directly to then President Alvaro Uribe.

Duque has been calling for Uribe to be "convicted for the illegal persecution he led against more than 300 people in Colombia. As a journalist, I will continue working to make people aware about the real dimensions of the espionage and its consequences for Colombia's democracy," said the reporter.

Murdoch and Uribe are both avid users of Twitter which has got them both in trouble - Murdoch with the celebrities whose phones were hacked by his journalists, and Uribe with a journalist whose phone was wire-tapped by his secret service agents.

On Saturday Murdoch called the victims of his media empire's phone-hacking "scumbag celebrities" prompting outrage from all sides.

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Uribe denies meeting with paramilitary leader

Auc

Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe released a statement Tuesday denying that he ever met with the ex supreme leader of paramilitary organization AUC Salvatore Mancuso.

 

In a three-point statement released by Uribe’s lawyers, the ex-president claims that β€œhe never met with outlaws.”

 

This comes a day after Salvatore Mancuso revealed in court that he had met Uribe when he was governor of Antioquia, although the former paramilitary head refused to elaborate further.

 

The statement from Uribe’s lawyer Jaime Enrique Granados PeΓ±a read: β€œMancuso tries, every time he has the opportunity, to associate himself with Uribe… but by full conviction, from the democratic debate of legality he (Uribe) never met with outlaws.”

It is not the first time Uribe has been linked with members of the AUC and in particular its former leader Mancuso.

Mancuso, who is currently being held in a prison in the US, claims that he contributed to Uribe's presidential re-election campaign in 2006, the same year the AUC and other paramilitary groups disbanded.

He also alleges that he held a meeting at Uribe's family owned Uberrimo estate in the department of Cordoba during the former President's three-year gubernatorial term (1995-1997). According to Mancuso, the result of this meeting was the appointment of former Police Commander, Raul Suarez.

Uribe has always denied links to Mancuso and even threatened to him last May for making similar allegations.

FM

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