ELN says that the Prosecutor’s Office fabricated “false news” and asks that there be “consequences” for Francisco Barbosa

2023-08-24 00:16:39

Following the statements by President Gustavo Petro and Defense Minister Iván Velásquez that no further evidence was found regarding the alleged attack on the Attorney General and other senior officials, the National Liberation Army came out to pry the situation and even try to turn the loads in your favor.

According to the guerrillas, the fact that more evidence has not been found means that it was “a setup” with the intention of sabotaging the peace agreement between the ELN and the Petro government.

“Does the Prosecutor’s Office manufacture false news? (…) The insurgency has been stigmatized and the dialogue table has been called into question,” the armed group said in a statement.

But the “claims” of the guerrillas went further. According to the official account of the ELN Delegation, the prosecutor should have some kind of “sanction” for allegedly carrying out actions against the dialogue table.

“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 stop there?” questioned the guerrilla.

It should be remembered that it was the same prosecutor, Francisco Barbosa, who announced that high-level sources had informed him of an ELN plan to make an attempt on his life and the lives of the senator of the Democratic Center, María Fernanda Cabal, and the former commander of the Army, Eduardo Shoemaker.

Despite the fact that the information generated an alert in the media and public opinion, the Government was always excepted from this plan. In fact, President Petro took almost two days to summon Barbosa to express his support and ensure that he would initiate the corresponding investigations.

Even so, the Ministry of Defense came out this Wednesday to say that no more evidence of this possible attack was found and that, according to its information, it was a single source that delivered that information to the Army and the Prosecutor’s Office.

“It was possible to confirm that, once the records held by the intelligence agencies were verified, the source that provided the information to the Attorney General’s Office would be the same one that delivered the data to the National Army (…). It was possible to verify that no body that makes up the intelligence community, in the development of its own tasks, stated that it had additional information to the existing one on the aforementioned terrorist intention,” said Velásquez.

It may interest you: Prosecutor Barbosa asked the IACHR for precautionary measures for the alleged attack against him

With all this, the prosecutor and President Petro staged a new exchange of barbs. Minutes after those statements by MinDefensa, the head of state trilled that “a senior official was fooled,” referring to the fact that Barbosa had believed an attack that did not exist.

To which Barbosa trilled that “the one they are deceiving is the president.”

In this context, the Negotiation Table has been managing tensions on both sides. This same Wednesday it became known, for example, that the guerrillas kidnapped a soldier in Fortul, Arauca municipality.