Colombia’s disgraced former Congresswoman Yidis Medina has been sentenced to 32 years for kidnapping, according to a press release from the Prosecutor General’s Office on Friday.
The court found Medina guilty of the aggravated kidnapping of municipal officials Ricardo Sequea and Juan Carlos Carvajal Torres in 2000, and sentenced her to 32 years with a fine of 300 statutory minimum wages.
The court ruled that the controversial politician co-authored the crime because she wanted to force the signing of a contract that favored a co-operative she represented. The officials were reportedly kidnapped by Marxist guerrilla group the ELN. Medina had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
“I did not order or participate in the kidnapping of two officials from the municipality of Barrancabermeja, because at the time of the events, I was kidnapped by the ELN,” said Medina during her trial.
Last month the former congresswoman was released from house arrest having served over two-and-a-half years of a four-year sentence for accepting bribes to vote in favor of the 2006 re-election bid of former President Alvaro Uribe. She previously claimed to have received death threats because of her testimony that incriminated several members of the Uribe cabinet.
