2024-09-28 00:28:24
The Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice confirmed this Thursday the sentences imposed on two former ministers and a former director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic (Dapre) for their participation in a bribery scandal, linked to illegal offers to congressmen to guarantee the approval of the presidential re-election in 2004.
The former officials Sabas Pretelt de la Vega, former Minister of the Interior; Diego Palacio Betancourt, former Minister of Social Protection; and Alberto Velásquez Echeverri, former director of Dapre, were found guilty of offer bureaucratic perks to the then congressmen Yidis Medina and Teodolindo Avendaño, in exchange for influencing their vote or abstention so that the re-election project of the then president Álvaro Uribe will continue its legislative course.
The decision ratifies the initial sentences imposed on April 15, 2015, when the Supreme Court, in a single instance, sentenced them for the crime of bribery for giving and offering. However, the process was reopened to guarantee double judicial compliance, a fundamental right that ensures that a convicted person can appeal his sentence to a second instance.
You may be interested in: Colombia recovered more than 100 cultural assets repatriated from the United States
In its ruling, the Supreme Court held that the evidence, including the statement of Yidis Medina and other indicationsconfirmed that the three defendants acted in a coordinated manner and with a distribution of tasks, with the aim of influencing the result of the vote. According to the ruling, the defendants played a decisive role in persuading and dissuading the congressmen involved so that, through the offer of positions and perks, the re-election project would continue.
The high court concluded that the former ministers and the former director of Dapre had “control of the fact”, since they had the ability to manipulate the actions of Medina and Avendaño, who with their vote, or their abstention from it, allowed the legislative project to be would prosper.
You can read: Bill on the right to die with dignity advances in Congress