2023-08-24 07:01:00
While Attorney General Francisco Barbosa says he fears for his life and sets off alarms about an alleged plan by the ELN to attack him and other personalities such as Senator María Fernanda Cabal and General (r) Eduardo Zapateiro, the President Gustavo Petro limits himself to saying that they were fooled.
The president’s words are supported in a recent statement from the Ministry of Defense in which they conclude that there is no relevant information about the attack; For this reason, the Prosecutor’s Office had to insist again that the alert is real and rejected the alleged negligence of the Government at the time of investigating.
The truth is that even the same armed group that is sitting at the dialogue table with the Government, dismissed the complaints and pointed out that the Prosecutor’s Office is trying to “manufacture false news”, for which reason this guerrilla questioned whether or not there will be consequences for Barbosa.
But the investigative entity was so dissatisfied with the statements by the minister, the President and the ELN, that they issued a statement explaining the facts point by point and later called a press conference at the entity’s facilities, led by the deputy prosecutor Martha Mancera, to clarify doubts and reaffirm her position that the attack planned by the ELN is real.
Even, in what seems like a new scuffle between the branches of power, Barbosa took the opportunity to criticize President Petro and reply that it was he who was deceived by those close to him.
Therefore, to give weight to the complaint and to dispute what the Minister of Defense said, on Wednesday morning the investigative body issued a two-page statement in which it recounted the preliminary findings on the situation, recalling that Two months ago, he opened a formal investigation into the insurgency’s plans to attack Barbosa and other personalities.
“Three different sources of information have been known that coincide in indicating independently that there is a real intention of the ELN to carry out a criminal action in Bogotá under the conditions and against the indicated persons or entities, and specify that meetings have been held and training in Venezuela in order to carry out criminal actions”.
However, from the Defense portfolio headed by Minister Velásquez, they concluded that “no intelligence agency received information from foreign intelligence agencies,” a statement that conflicts with what was expressed by the accusing entity.
Although President Gustavo Petro himself met with prosecutor Barbosa and personally expressed his support for the situation, the report delivered by the Ministry of Defense gave him the opportunity to minimize the alleged terrorist plan. “The origin of their deception has to do with the processes to verify sources,” Petro said.
In this context, Deputy Prosecutor Martha Mancera was in charge of putting a face on the issue this Wednesday at a press conference and emphasized that the Prosecutor’s Office is the only entity in charge of investigating. “Believe the source or not, the investigation will say so, not the defense minister, not the military leadership and not the president,” she said.
Immediately afterwards and after defending himself against Petro’s accusations, Mancera explained that they had not been deceived and indicated that in some computers seized from the leaders “Uriel” and “Fabián”, of the ELN, information was found that could shed light on the alleged attack plan against Barbosa.
Likewise, the deputy prosecutor explained that this is why it is so delicate that the President of the Republic and the Minister of Defense himself come out to distort the real complaints that they have been presenting for two weeks because, in short, “it puts us at total risk in safety”.
And in the face of the strong alarms set off by the investigative body, the ELN has not remained silent and has come out on more than one occasion to deny the accusations. However, for the deputy prosecutor, it is hardly logical that this should happen, since “nobody would think of a group like the ELN assuming responsibility without first having carried it out.”
But what this guerrilla always questions is that it would be a plan by the Prosecutor to sabotage the peace process with the Government. “The falsehood of the news is demonstrated, but will there be consequences against Francisco Barbosa? He used the entire apparatus of the Prosecutor’s Office and Semana Magazine to attack Gustavo Petro and sabotage the Dialogue Table. Does everything stay there?” they trilled through the official account of the ELN Delegation.
The deputy prosecutor already had the answer to those questions ready and at the press conference she brought out a letter that turned the whole picture upside down. “Rather, she would say what the consequences would be if something happened to one of the threatened persons in relation to their integrity, that would put the negotiating tables in an unfortunate situation.”
In any case, quite apart from what the president says or thinks, the Prosecutor’s Office announced that the investigation will not be archived but will continue its course despite the denials of the ELN and the lack of credibility of the Government itself.
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