Anti-corruption NGOs’, judicial experts and journalists asked Colombia’s chief prosecutor to stop pretending he’s investigating the allegedly fraudulent election of his friend, President Ivan Duque.
Evidence that Prosecutor General Francisco Barbosa and his two predecessors have been withholding crucial evidence and the chief prosecutor’s evident conflict of interest have made the chief prosecutor’s role all but an insult to justice.
Transparency Colombia, human rights NGO DeJusticia and journalist Gonzalo Guillen asked the chief prosecutor to separate himself from the investigation because of his 25-year-long friendship with Duque, who is investigated by Congress.
The above request is based on the personal and professional relationship that has existed between President Ivan Duque and the current Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa, which constitutes a conflict of interest.
Transparency Colombia and DeJusticia
The request was made before weekly Semana found that Barbosa had been withholding 36,000 of 51,000 wiretaps, including crucial recordings that proves that the former personal assistant of Duque’s political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, was conspiring with an alleged drug trafficker, allegedly on behalf of her boss.
The wiretaps are evidence in investigations by the Supreme Court, Congress and the Prosecutor General’s Office itself into the election fraud conspiracy allegedly led by Uribe and the participation of the president.
Having little faith Barbosa will want to step aside, Transparency Colombia and DeJusticia formally asked the Supreme Court to appoint a special prosecutor and force the chief prosecutor out of the way.
This special prosecutor must have sufficient independence and capacity to carry out the work entrusted to him in an agile and efficient manner.
Transparency Colombia and DeJusticia
Over the past two days alone, wiretap recordings proved that Uribe’s personal assistant, Maria Claudia Daza, and Jose Guillermo Hernandez, the alleged money launderer of drug trafficker Marquitos Figueroa, were conspiring to buy votes in northern Colombia.
In one of the wiretaps, Daza told the alleged money launderer about Uribe moving illicit campaign funds to the Antioquia province and in a second one Hernandez told Uribe”s PA he was setting up an illegal meeting between Duque and mayors from the Magdalena province.
Barbosa had surrendered neither of these wiretaps to the Supreme Court, which is investigating Uribe, and Congress, which is investigating Duque.
The prosecution is supposed to be investigating, among others, Daza and former Defense Minister Guillermo Botero, but appeared more dedicated to disappearing evidence.
