Despite defending his chief of staff, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced Friday that the high officer will be removed from office to face investigations into a wiretapping scandal with no ties to the executive.
The Colombian head of state also announced that the country’s ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, will leave the cabinet under the same argument, because it is suspected that he facilitated the case to come to light due to his differences with Laura Sarabia, the chief of staff.
The matter has become a controversy in Colombia and for the Petro government, which championed “change” and promised to put an end to illegal wiretapping practices that took place in the Álvaro Uribe government.
It took on a greater dimension in the last few hours, after the announcement by the General Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday of opening an investigation into the alleged wiretapping of two domestic workers from Sarabia. It is being investigated whether there was an abuse of power by the chief of staff.
Petro, during a promotion ceremony of the National Army, said that the decision is made “so that from the power that these charges imply, there can not even be the distrust that the investigation processes will be altered, which do not correspond to us as us, but to the competent authorities”.
Despite the departure of the two senior officials, the Head of State defended his chief of staffa position of trust, and said that he never acted outside the Law. “If a confidential or intelligence role were lost in my house, I would also have to do the same with all the people around me,” said the president. .
In addition, he said that no one has stopped to analyze the reaction of a “young woman who has just given birth, with her first maternal experience, when an event occurs in her domestic life that makes her feel in distress and reacts within the law”.
Petro referred to the polygraph test that was performed on Sarabia’s babysitter, after she lost an briefcase with about 7,000 dollars from his house. However, until now the Head of State denies that someone from his government has given the order to intercept telephones.
“Nobody has been ordered a single illegal wiretapping, not illustrious and powerful former officials or humble people. That is not true. That order has not been given to them nor will it be given,” the president said during the military ceremony.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the police created two false profiles of the women, linking them to drug trafficking groups, as a pretext for a local judge to authorize wiretaps, after a briefcase with money disappeared from the house of Laura Sarabia, the outgoing chief of staff. With that report, a local judge authorized the wiretapping without the Prosecutor’s Office being aware of it.
“We can clearly say that the ‘chuzadas’, the illegal interceptions, have returned to Colombia,” said Attorney General Francisco Barbosa the day before.
He also reported that in the coming days several of those involved in these illegal actions will be charged, without specifying who they might be. He explained that three lines of investigation have been opened: one for the theft of the briefcase, another for the irregular practice of polygraph tests and another for illegal wiretapping.
Days ago, the prosecutor Barbosa had already warned that the entity he directs is the only one that has the power to investigate criminal proceedings. Colombian legislation establishesIn addition, intelligence agencies can only intercept phones with the authorization of a judge.
According to her complaint, two of Sarabia’s collaborators were illegally wiretapped after the chief of staff reported on January 29 the loss of a briefcase with $7,000 in cash that was in her home. What the Prosecutor’s Office is now investigating is whether the official used the state intelligence apparatus to clarify the disappearance of the money.
When Sarabia filed a complaint about the theft of the briefcase with the Prosecutor’s Office, she did not indicate that her collaborators could be suspects. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, on January 30, that is, one day after the robbery, police intelligence agents began to illegally listen to the two women.
On Friday, the Prosecutor’s Office ratified the complaint, after the National Police issued a statement stating that the illegal interceptions occurred two days before the loss of the briefcase and only lasted 72 hours. The Prosecutor’s Office insisted that the wiretapping began a day after the disappearance of the suitcase and lasted 10 days.
The outgoing chief of staff had accused the ambassador of having organized everything so that this whole situation was made public and of putting the alleged abuse of power on the table. While Benedetti suggested that the senior official was behind the illegal wiretapping, because she herself told him that one of the workers -a babysitter- had the intention of reporting to the media that she felt persecuted. According to the ambassador, Sarabia had no way of knowing the woman’s plans, except through wiretaps.
