On Monday, October 8, President Álvaro Uribe Vélez appeared on national television claiming that he was being accused of ordering the murder of a paramilitary warlord known as René. According to Reuters, The court, which is probing dozens of Uribe's political allies on charges they supported paramilitary death squads, accuses the president of obstructing those investigations while Uribe says it is plotting against him. In several radio interviews, Uribe said on Tuesday the court offered benefits including a reduced sentence to jailed paramilitary chief Jose Moncada in exchange for testifying that the president ordered the killing of another militia boss in 2003. He made the charge in private questioning last week and news of his testimony has just begun circulating. Xinhua complements: “The country needs to know if the president is an assassin or if the lawyer and Mr. alias Tasmania are liars. All we Colombians can be investigated, starting from the president, but it is necessary that the means be legal and decent,” Uribe told a press conference. […] Velazquez has received the unanimous support of the supreme court's 23 judges through a communique.Uribe said, “I believe that it is bad to obtain a deceitful confession through torture or through gifts.” High peace commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, said in 2004 that “Rene” confessed to him that he feared to be a victim of assassination attempts ordered by Uribe or by the government forces, and that is why he had refused to leave the concentration region. On Sunday, it was learnt that the letter from the paramilitary chief Moncada, alias Tasmania (or perhaps Taz-Mania, since the animated television show is better known in Colombia than the Australian island), was delivered to the president by his older brother Santiago Uribe, according to national newspaper El Tiempo [ES]. As usual, this incident sparked outrage in the Colombian blogosphere and a huge controversy between president Uribe's supporters and those ones who side with the Supreme Court, especially when justice Iván Velásquez, the one accused by the president, “carries [ES] the burden of investigations of over 30 politicians for their links with former chiefs of the Self-United Forces of Colombia (AUC)”, most of them from the ruling coalition, including Mr. Uribe's own cousin, senator Mario Uribe Escobar. Carlos Cuentero [ES] writes at El desván: Gritos e insultos a la Corte Suprema de Justicia… ¿dictadura democrática? Shouts and insults to the Supreme Court of Justice… a democratic dictatorship? On the blog Atrabilioso [ES], journalist Miguel Yances makes a summary of the case and attacks some of the Colombian media: Lo extraño de este suceso es que la opinión especializada que difunden los medios masivos, de forma casi generalizada se dedicó a descalificar, no a Tasmania ni al magistrado, sino al presidente; mientras que en la Urna Virtual de Caracol, más del 70% de quienes participaron, estuvieron de acuerdo con el proceder presidencial. ¿Por qué algunos políticos, periodistas y medios masivos -me consta que El Universal no- le cargan tanta bronca al presidente? ¿Solo por qué es buen negocio; o por venganza? La venganza la sanciona la opinión pública, y el dinero es bueno y necesario, pero hay que medir bien las formas que se usan para conseguirlo. The strange thing about this event is that the specialized opinion spread by the mass media, in a generalized way, spent their time to discredit not Tasmania or the justice [Velásquez] but the president, whereas a virtual poll in Caracol TV shows that more than 70% of the participants agreed with the president's actions. Why do some politicians, journalists and mass media -I can say El Universal [the daily Yances works for] have so much anger towards the president? Just because it's good for business or for revenge? Revenge is sanctioned by the public opinion, and the money is good and necessary, but the ways used to get it should be measured. Valentina Díaz from Realidades Colombianas [ES] says: ¿Qué interés oculto tiene el presidente para seguir en la misma tónica echarle leña a la fogata contra el poder judicial y presionar para orientar las investigaciones de la Fiscalía? ¿Por qué el Comisionado de Paz asegura que “alias ‘René’ no se desmovilizaba porque tenía miedo que el presidente y su amigo Ernesto Garcés lo mataran”? Por eso y mucho más hay quienes creen que estamos al borde del desplome institucional.