This is how Samper responded to Pastrana for statements about alleged Cali cartel funding for his presidential campaign.

After the appearance of the former president Andrés Pastrana before the Truth Commission during which he handed to the director of the said body, Francisco de Roux, a letter which, according to him, was sent to him by the brothers Miguel and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela in which they claimed that “Samper was aware of the proceeds of the money from drug trafficking in the campaign, ”reacted the former liberal president via his Twitter account.

In context | This is the letter that the Rodríguez Orejuela family gave to Andrés Pastrana and which hires Ernesto Samper – Infobae

Samper asserted that he did not recognize “any moral authority” in Pastrana and then opened fire on the historic feud that the two ex-presidents have maintained since the 1990s:

“I do not recognize any moral authority in Andrés Pastrana until he explains to public opinion what his relationship was with the pedophile Epstein and why and why he invited his pimp Ghislaine Maxwell to Cartagena”, wrote Samper Pizano , after the appearance of Pastrana before the truth commission.

The episode referred to by Samper is linked to the meeting Pastrana had with the businessman Jeffrey Epstein, indicted and convicted of various sex crimes, and his wife, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of implicating young women with upperclass English and American men.

The Epstein scandal involved figures of the stature of Prince Andrew of England, who have denied ties to the businessman and his wife, despite photographs of the character with women allegedly being induced by Maxwell. been published.

Epstein died in a New York City jail cell in 2019.

Following the incident, former President Pastrana issued a statement, signed from the Golan Heights, Israel, in which clarified that his relationship with the businessman and his wife was tangential, occurred during a transfer between two flights to the island of Cuba, where the former president was traveling.

Here is the statement Pastrana released on August 14, 2019:

Amid journalistic revelations about the horrific and reprehensible sex scandals of financier Jeffrey Epstein, a recording emerged of one of my trips on his plane to Nassau, Bahamas, to the final destination of Havana, to Cuba, invited by President Fidel Castro. . Mr. Jeffrey Epstein left Cuba a day or two later, I stayed on the island

Context of an endless argument

The struggle between the two arose when Pastrana, defeat in the presidential elections of 1994, received the so-called “Narcocassettes”, the first document that reported on alleged Cali cartel funding to Ernesto Samper’s presidential campaign.

The letter delivered to the Truth Commission, signed by the former Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orjuela, contains statements that would confirm the monetary income of the Cali cartel to the Samper campaign.

One of the most specific passages of this letter concerns the deceased Horacio serpa, who served as government minister during the tumultuous years of the presidency Samper:

Even if it is true that at one point in our life we ​​made the mistake of contributing to Dr ERNESTO SAMPER PIZANO and his most immediate collaborators, with the money for his presidential campaign. It was NOT behind their backs, let alone the backs of campaign managers as they proclaim in public squares. We did this only with the wish that a liberal government, led by Drs ERNESTO SAMPER AND HORACIO SERPA, would lead the country on better courses based on progress, social justice and the good of all Colombians.

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