2023-08-17 07:01:00
This Thursday a new chapter is expected to be written within the judicial process that is being carried out in Colombia for the Odebrecht corruption case. This is due to the fact that the Attorney General of the Nation, Francisco Barbosa, is expected to detail 60 new defendants who would be judicially dotted for possible links to the bribery scandal of the Brazilian multinational.
Also read: Petro accused Néstor Humberto Martínez of covering up Odebrecht corruption
This revelation generates expectation because it will be made just when it became known about the presence of a person, identified as ‘Colombian Official 3’, whom they describe as a senior official who would have been in the government between 2010 and 2018 and who would have received a million-dollar bribe , as it became known after the agreement signed by Corficolombiana with the United States Department of Justice.
Vicky Dávila, director of Semana magazine, assured on her Twitter account that it would be former president Juan Manuel Santos, a statement that would have been made by a high-ranking source who knew of that agreement. At the mention of his name, Santos denied it, arguing that it is a fallacy that will be in charge of distorting before the authorities of both countries.
“If any of the parties to the agreement between Corficolombiana and the North American authorities confirm the fallacy that is circulating about the alleged bribe that I received, I will take care of demonstrating that it is a reckless, infamous and counter-evident slander,” said the former president.
Petro asked for more measures
In the prelude to this accusation, President Gustavo Petro asked the Foreign Ministry and the Prosecutor’s Office to take action to further expand the scope of this controversial case.
The president pointed out that this case “enjoys impunity” in Colombia, for which he ordered Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva to resort to legal collaboration mechanisms with the governments of the United States and Brazil, and the Prosecutor’s Office asked him to reopen processes in order to find those responsible for receiving bribes from the multinational Odebrecht.
The Prosecutor’s Office assured this newspaper that the request for collaboration with the United States could be inadmissible and would not change the course of the Odebrecht case in Colombia because this process has been taking place in recent years with this entity of the Judicial branch.
According to the source within the Prosecutor’s Office, after the justice of the North American country discovered that Odebrecht paid bribes of more than 100 million dollars to officials from countries such as Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, among others, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) undertook a collaborative process.
“The FBI began to collaborate with Colombia when the attorney general was Néstor Humberto Martínez. When Francisco Barbosa took office as attorney general, he created a special task force made up of the head of the prosecutors delegated to the Court and 10 other prosecutors. They met with the FBI and received detailed information about the case that they learned about thanks to witnesses,” said the source who asked to remain anonymous.
For his part, the president of the Colombian Criminal Lawyers College, Francisco Bernate, assured that the Government can take steps to seek greater legal collaboration from the United States because, according to him, if there is talk of bribery of officials in Colombia, it is feasible to resort to international cooperation mechanisms.
“We are talking about a case of alleged transnational bribery. Colombian justice must carry out investigations in depth with the aim of determining who was bribed and how they were bribed,” said the lawyer.
Processes did not close
Regarding the processes of the Prosecutor’s Office that the president asks to open, it was possible to confirm that these pages have not been closed in the Colombian justice system.
So much so that this year there have been charges against national political figures such as former presidential candidate Óscar Iván Zuluaga.
In June, the accusing body accused Zuluaga and his campaign manager, David Zuluaga Martínez, of receiving campaign financing from foreigners, in addition to former minister Cecilia Álvarez.
The accusation against the Zuluagas occurred after the collaboration agreement with the justice of the former director of Invías, Daniel García Arizabaleta, who delivered evidence and checks that confirmed the payment of bribes from the construction company.
García Arizabaleta appears repeatedly in the pages of the Prosecutor’s Office about Odebrecht, since he would have signed two simulated contracts with the company Consultores Unidos that would have served to receive 360 million pesos from the multinational.
Another who was accused is the ex-manager of structuring and adjudication of the missing INCO, David Villalba Escobar, who would have mediated in the payment of a bribe of 6.5 million dollars to favor the Concessionaire Ruta del Sol SAS with his actions.
In addition, in March of this year, the accusing entity sentenced the president of the stock broker Profesionales de Bolsa SA, Gustavo Torres Forero, to 5 years in prison, for entering into a fictitious contract for the provision of financial advisory and banking services for investment with the concessionaire in March 2014.
Thus, it is clear that the Prosecutor’s Office has kept the investigations open and this Thursday will reaffirm it with the 60 new charges. While the process progresses, the president hopes that the investigation will point directly to Grupo Aval, owned by businessman Luis Carlos Sarmiento Ángulo.
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