3 Colombian Ministers Accused of Cover-Up

Prosecutors Tuesday threw out the stiffest charges against three of President Ernesto Samper’s Cabinet ministers but formally accused them of covering up the use of drug money in his 1994 campaign.

The prosecutors’ decision was a boost for the president, who is clinging to power despite accusations that his campaign was financed by millions of dollars in drug money, because it keeps his first string of advisors intact. The three, who are Samper’s top aides, will not be jailed as they await trial.

Foreign Minister Rodrigo Pardo, Interior Minister Horacio Serpa and Telecommunications Minister Juan Manuel Turbay are part of a team formed more than a decade ago. Serpa is the consummate politician, Pardo is the clique’s intellectual, and Turbay is Samper’s closest confidant.

Prosecutors had questioned them about allegations that they helped funnel drug money into the campaign and violated spending limits. Former Defense Minister Fernando Botero, Samper’s campaign manager, is in jail and has accused his colleagues and the president of knowing about the drug money.

The other three ministers had been widely expected to join him in jail. The fact that they were not charged with more than a cover-up is “the fruit of strong pressure,” said Congresswoman Ingrid Betancur, a disillusioned former Samper supporter.

Laws on campaign spending limits were nullified last week, making prosecution on such charges more difficult. Even though the ministers are free, the cover-up charges bring suspicions of wrongdoing closer to the president.

“This corners the president,” political analyst Fernando Cepeda said. “It is hardly likely that four ministers are accused but not him; that all his friends betrayed him.”

The ministers charged Tuesday have denied any involvement in the alleged crimes, and Samper has vigorously defended them.

Serpa lashed out at Prosecutor General Alfonso Valdivieso last week, calling him arrogant and overbearing. “We ministers are not thugs, we are not crooks . . . ,” he said. “Neither Turbay nor Pardo nor I are criminals, nor have we had ties to drug trafficking.”

Serpa is the most gregarious of the three ministers and the one seemingly least affected as the investigation into the campaign financing has dragged on in recent weeks. “I’m like a fish in the water,” he said in a recent interview, in which he denied, one by one, all accusations against him.

In contrast, the once youthful-looking Pardo has appeared drawn and worried during the investigation. Pardo has been a friend of Samper’s since their days at an exclusive boys’ school in Bogota, the capital.

Pardo, who has written extensively about the problems that the narcotics trade has caused Colombia, is said by friends to be horrified at the idea that drug money entered the campaign.

Turbay is the son and grandson of politicians. The most enigmatic of the three, he is believed to be the closest to Samper. “I have been President Samper’s friend since college days, when we began to think of a political project,” he said in a recent interview.

“Whatever the outcome, when the Samper administration ends, I am going into private life,” he said.