An official from Colombia’s national prison authority INPEC was jailed for 22 years on Wednesday for extorting prison inmates and falsifying documents, El Espectador reported Wednesday.
The official, Luis Enrique Murallas Gutierrez, was found guilty by a Medellin court of demanding sums of between $105 and $1,587 from prisoners in exchange for their inclusion in study- and work-related rehabilitation programmes.
The prosecution in the case showed that Murallas orchestrated the scheme and carried it out with the help of two other men who worked in the Bellavista prison in Medellin, Armando Lozano Diaz and Francisco Peña Marin, who were also sentenced to 12 and nine years respectively.
A fourth man, John Jairo Aristizabal Escobar, was acquitted due to a lack of evidence against him.