Panama FM Denies Alleged
Links To Colombian Drug
Trafficker
Panama's first Vice
President and Foreign
Minister Samuel Lewis
Navarro on Monday
rejected charges of
having business contacts
with one of Colombia's
top drug traffickers.
"I have never met nor
had any contact with Mr.
Nelson Urrego in all my
50-year life," Lewis
Navarro said in a
statement. "Statements
that I have met this
person for trade or
other reasons in Panama
or anywhere else in the
world are absolutely
false," he added.
Urrego, who has been
held on money-laundering
charges since September
2007, told a newspaper
based in the United
States city of Miami
that he had twice met
Lewis Navarro, who had
tried to pressure Urrego
into selling his private
island, Chapera.
Lewis Navarro said, "I
do not have now and have
not in the past had any
interest in buying the
island," adding that he
was not linked to
Panama's prosecutors'
decision to investigate
Urrego.
Urrego opened his
Panamanian bank accounts
in 2002, but says he had
no problems with the
Panamanian authorities
before he rejected Lewis
Navarro's bids to buy
Chapera. Urrego's
lawyers have asked
Panama's prosecutors to
force Lewis Navarro to
testify on the matter
under oath.
"Everything I have said
is 100 percent true,"
Urrego told newspapers.
"There is something
fishy going on. Someone
is lying and I don't see
any reason for them to
do so. I just wanted to
live a clean life in
Panama, and I have done
nothing illegal," he
said.
Urrego has offered to
take lie detector tests
on the issue.
Panama's main anti-drug
prosecutor, Jose Abel
Almengor, said the case
began in 2005 after the
now-bankrupt Banco
Continental alerted the
authorities about
potential financial
misdeeds.
Urrego has been charged
with drug trafficking
both in his native
Colombia and in the U.S.
state of Florida.
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