Colombia Leader Seeks Probe of Campaign : South America: Samper asks Congress to determine if drug lords’ money helped him to win the presidency.

Belea guered President Ernesto Samper, confronting the biggest crisis of his year-old administration, asked Congress to investigate formally whether cocaine money helped him win election last year.

Following the arrest of his campaign treasurer, Santiago Medina, on charges of illicit enrichment, receipt of drug money and perjury, Samper made an unscheduled nationwide television address Thursday night before leaving for a trip to Peru.

In the broadcast, he admitted the possibility that drug money went to his campaign but insisted: “Colombians can be sure that if any infiltration of [drug] money is proven, its entry would have been behind my back.”

He had previously said he was certain no drug money went to his campaign because of strict internal controls.

Samper also accused the drug mafia of blackmail, saying they had been offering Colombian media “supposed evidence” of their friendship with leading public figures in an attempt to intimidate the officials from acting against them.

“So that there are no doubts about my conduct . . . I have asked the Commission of Accusations of the House of Representatives, the constitutional organ responsible for watching over the conduct of the [president] . . . to start without delay the formalities foreseen in the law,” he said.

He said his crackdown on the country’s drug mafia, which has included the capture or surrender of five top drug lords, destruction of 30% of the drug crop, tough new penalties for money laundering and purging of corrupt police, is proof of his determination to fight the cocaine trade.

But Jorge Garcia Hurtado, an opposition politician who until last year held a watchdog post to prevent the misuse of public funds, said if proof is found that Samper’s campaign had received drug money, his election should be annulled.

Enrique Parejo, who ran as an independent candidate for president last year on a platform of strong ethics, said everything now depends on investigations into the scandal being conducted by independent prosecutors.

“Of course doubts remain, particularly about the responsibility of the heads of the Samper campaign in this episode,” Parejo said.

The opposition newspaper La Prensa, which has led a campaign against Samper over the allegations of drug funding ever since his election, summed up his speech with the headlines: “It Wasn’t Me, It Was My Friends” and “Laundering of Hands.”

Allegations that the Cali cartel, which controls more than 80% of the world cocaine trade, helped finance Samper’s campaign first surfaced in June, 1994, immediately after his election victory.

*

A series of tape recordings, known as the “narcocassettes,” surfaced in which Cali kingpins Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela were heard discussing with an intermediary a donation of $3.6 million to Samper’s campaign.

Samper did not question the authenticity of the recordings but said his campaign staff had flatly rejected the offer.

Medina, whose name was mentioned in the tapes, was transferred Thursday night to a cell in Bogota’s Modelo jail to await further questioning. His lawyer, Ernesto Amezquita, said he would attempt to get Medina released with a habeas corpus writ alleging arbitrary arrest.