One of Colombia’s top organized crime prosecutors was not assassinated, but murdered in a botched robbery, the prosecution said Wednesday.
The killing of the Cali chief of prosecutor Alcibiades Libreros sent a shock wave through the Prosecutor General’s Office that hasn’t lost an official of this rank in years.
Initially, authorities presumed that the Cali chief of the prosecution’s organized crime unit was assassinated.
One of Colombia’s top organized crime prosecutors assassinated
The botched robbery
Based on camera footage, acting Prosecutor General Fabio Espitia and National Police chief General Oscar Atehortua on Wednesday said Libreros was murdered by members of a street gang who trying to steal his chain.
So far it has been proven that the detainees belonged to a criminal network responsible for the theft of jewelry and valuable items, and their judicial records would link them to several assaults of this kind in Cali, some on days after the crime against the prosecutor.
Prosecutor General Fabio Espitia
The killer and three other members of the gang have been arrested, the top officials said while stressing they were still investigating alternative motives.
“Where is the justice in this country?”
Despite his position, Libreros did not have bodyguards as the National Protection Unit (NPU) refused to grant him protection, according to his sister Carmenza.
He had requested protection, multiple times he requested protection for himself and his family and they denied it… where is the justice in this country?
Carmenza Libreros
The UNP, which has been under fire over failures and corruption for months, did not respond to the accusation it had refused protection to one of the country’s most important crime fighters.
To add insult to injury, the alleged gang leader who was allegedly directly involved in the robbery had been granted house arrest despite multiple armed robbery convictions, according to Espitia.