Former house-arrested Colombia congresswoman, Yidis Medina, is suing the Colombian government for $4.9 million for damages and illegal persecution conducted by former intelligence agency DAS.
Medina, who was put on house-arrest in 2008 for receiving bribes for voting in favor of a bill allowing former President Alvaro Uribe’s 2006 reelection bid, is demanding compensation from the government for harassing her, friends, and members of her family.
She claims that during the course of the initial investigation on voter fraud, and a subsequent investigation concerning an alleged kidnapping plot involving the ex-congresswoman, the government violated her fundamental human right to, “be protected against illegal meddling in her life by the government.”
Allegedly her parents, two sisters, friends and two ex-husbands were all harassed in some form by the government.
Medina blames Colombia’s former intelligence agency, DAS, which reported directly to the President’s office. Current President Juan Manuel Santos changed the organization and relocated much of its operations to the National Police after his election.
Yidis Medina’s career has been been rife with controversy and strange media attention. The ex-congresswoman was arrested and convicted in 2008 for accepting bribes for votes in favor of a constitutional amendment that would allow Uribe to run for a second term in 2006. She was then investigated in 2012 for taking part in a kidnapping-ransom plot. She was initially found guilty of the kidnapping and sentenced to 32 years in prison, but was then later acquitted after appeals.
In response to being sentenced in 2008 for the former charges, she posed naked in a men’s magazine, SoHo in suggestive prison-themed poses.
NEWS ARCHIVE: Yidis Medina
Medina sued the government around the same time last year for wiretapping.