2024-08-28 02:34:12
This is an issue that will not ease the tensions between Bogota and Managua. The Colombian Supreme Court on Tuesday indicted the Colombian ambassador to Nicaragua for drug trafficking six years after he was caught at the Medellin airport with cocaine in his luggage.
The police at this airport found a total of 346 grams of drugs in the luggage of Leon Fredy Munoz, lawyer Marlenne Orjuela Rodriguez explained in a hearing on Tuesday before the Supreme Court.
Munoz accused his political rivals
The representative said the drugs were hidden without his knowledge by political rivals. At Tuesday’s hearing, he said he “didn’t even know about cocaine.” The lawyer asked for a prison sentence of 9 to 11 years. The Supreme Court of Colombia, which accepted the case because it involved a “senior official”, will rule in another hearing.
The Colombian senator was released a few days after his arrest on May 31, 2018. He then served in the lower house of Congress from 2018 to 2022, before being appointed representative to Managua shortly after the election. of Colombian President Gustavo Petro in August 2022.
Tensions around the presidential election in Venezuela
The accusation of the diplomat comes against the background of turmoil in relations between Colombia and Nicaragua. On Monday, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega described his Colombian and Brazilian colleagues as “at the mercy” of the countries of the European Union and the United States, by refusing to recognize the contested results of the referendum in Venezuela which granted the exit. President Nicolás Maduro wins.
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