A report claiming ties between former President Alvaro Uribe and imprisoned Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo” Guzman has now prompted even President Uribe’s longest-running, harshest media critic to trash the report as unsubstantiated.

The apparent fake-news report – first broadcast by fired former Colombian Attorney General’s Office investigator and convicted criminal Richard Maok, and subsequently repeated in UK-based newspaper Daily Mail --also prompted President Uribe’s lawyers to issue an unusual February 10 news release contradicting the report.

The biggest surprise, however, came from fierce Uribe critic, former Semana magazine columnist and now Univision editorial director Daniel Coronell, who trashed the apparent fake-news story, pulling it from Univision broadcasts “because I consider that this report hasn’t been verified by independent [rather than the usual anti-Uribe, left-wing-biased] journalists,” Coronell stated.

In addition, President Uribe’s Bogota-based attorneys Jaime Granados and Jaime Lombana issued the following press release (obtained by Medellin Herald) denouncing the Maok report as a fantastical fabrication:

“Responding to new calumnies proffered against President Alvaro Uribe Velez, we state the following:

“Richard Maok is a fugitive from Colombian justice, condemned [by the Colombian Supreme Court] for grave crimes against the administration of national justice.

“Aided by political sectors adverse to President Uribe [including left-wing Senator and former M-19 guerrilla Gustavo Petro], Maok fled to Canada where he enjoys immunity from his crimes.

“Since years ago, this shadowy person has proffered a series of infamies against various public persons including Luis Camilo Osorio, former Attorney General [of Colombia]. These ‘denunciations’ [by Maok], lacking any seriousness, have been debunked.

“Now, [Maok] has chosen President Uribe as victim of his absurd calumnies, trying to link [Uribe] to the Sinaloa cartel. Lamentably, international news media have echoed these fantastical tales, staining the good name of President Uribe.

“President Uribe has been recognized globally and regionally as one of the most important leaders in the struggle against narcotrafficking. Statistics [during Uribe’s two terms as President] are unprecedented: Reduction [of coca plantation areas] from 180,000 hectares during Plan Colombia to 62,000; more than 1,150 [cocaine traffickers] extradited [to the United States]; seizures of cocaine rising from 95 tonnes in 2002 to more than 1,330 tonnes at the end of his term – achievements that were key in the transformation of Colombia and our democracy. Because of that he was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest decoration given by the U.S. government to any civilian,” the bulletin from Uribe’s lawyers concludes.