A priest who was imprisoned for five months during Argentina’s military dictatorship has issued a statement clearing Jorge Manuel Bergoglio — now Pope Francis — of playing a role in his arrest. Francisco Jalics was addressing reports Bergoglio had passed along information about him and another Jesuit priest that led to their detention and torture. He said, “I myself was once inclined to believe that we were the victims of a denunciation.” But he said, “At the end of the ’90s, after numerous conversations, it became clear to me that this suspicion was unfounded. It is therefore wrong to assert that our capture took place at the initiative of Father Bergoglio.” Jalics’ statement appears to contradict what he originally told Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky. Verbitsky appeared recently on Democracy Now! and said Jalics confirmed a report by the second priest, Orlando Yorio, who is now dead, that Bergoglio was involved in their imprisonment.

Horacio Verbitsky: “I talked with him, and he confirmed the story, but he didn’t want to be mentioned in my piece, because he told me that he preferred to not remember this sad part of his life and to pardon. And he was for oblivion and pardon. That he was, during a lot of years, very resented against Bergoglio, but that he had decided to forgot and forget.”