Aide: Colombian Leader Knowingly Took Drug Money

The jailed chief of President Ernesto Samper’s 1994 election campaign charged Monday that the president knowingly took millions of campaign dollars from the Cali drug cartel.

The charges, leveled by Fernando Botero, a former defense minister, go far beyond other allegations that the campaign took money from the Cali organizations and are likely to plunge the government into a new crisis at a time when Samper is already weakened.

“He knew. It’s the truth. He knew,” Botero said on a television program. “It’s a central fact. He is very seriously compromised.”

Samper denied Botero’s “slanderous statements” and said he had even called for an investigation of his own campaign last year.

“If there was drug money in my campaign, it was without my knowledge and against my instructions,” Samper said in a live television address Monday night.

“Mr. Botero is lying to save himself,” he said.

Botero said he decided to tell the truth about the campaign because he wanted to clear his conscience. He said that he was not responsible for accepting or distributing cartel money but was detained in August because he failed to report what he saw.