The Colombian Prosecutor’s Office assures that Óscar Dávila committed suicide

2023-06-21 17:42:58

The confirmation of the suicide gives a break to the scandal that surrounds the government of Gustavo Petro. Petro’s early reaction upon learning of his death, and saying that he had caused his own death, without an official forensic report, had raised many suspicions among public opinion. And it is that Dávila was being investigated in a case of illegal wiretapping in which the Presidency team may be linked.

First modification: 06/21/2023 – 17:42 Last modification: 06/21/2023 – 17:47

With RFI’s Bogotá correspondent, Paula Carrillo

“Óscar Dávila, 42 years old and with 24 years of service, decides to take his own life with the weapon that belonged to his driver. For the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, the results of the autopsy are positive for suicide”, concluded the deputy attorney general, Martha Janeth Mancera, at a press conference. Dávila died on June 9 from a shot to the temple.

The forensic tests indicated that both the trajectory of the shot, as well as the gunpowder residue in the right hand, which activated the weapon, as well as those that remained in the gun had a single origin, which proves the way in which he died.

“The conclusion from the forensic point of view was also that” without any doubt, this is a typical case of a contact injury with all the characteristics of a suicide,” said the forensic doctor Jorge Eduardo Paredes, from the Prosecutor’s Office.

wiretapping scandal

Óscar Dávila, lieutenant colonel of the Colombian Police and assigned to presidential security, was linked to the scandal of illegal wiretapping in the Government.

The police officer was being investigated in a wiretapping scandal that led to the departure of Laura Sarabia, Petro’s right-hand man, and the then ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, from the government.

After a briefcase with thousands of dollars was stolen from Sarabia’s house, her nanny ended up being interrogated with a polygraph at the presidential headquarters and then her telephone conversations were intercepted using a false police report that linked her to drug traffickers, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.

Benedetti, a powerful politician who supported Petro in the campaign, and the former chief of staff shared the same babysitter and accuse each other of conspiracy. (with AFP)