Colombia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the investigation of a key ally of President Juan Manuel Santos in the Senate over the lawmaker’s alleged role in the embezzlement of seized properties of drug traffickers.
The case goes back to 2009, when government agency DNE, responsible for deliver revenue of the sale of seized narco properties and goods to the treasury, delivered a plot of land to a Cali church with ties to U Party Senator Roy Barreras.
In July 2013, the State Council denied the Senator’s loss of investiture as a congressmen due to lack of evidence regarding accusations he had used his influence as Senator to have the plot delivered to the church.
In spite of the State Council’s decision, the Supreme Court said last week that there does exist enough evidence to investigate Barreras’ alleged involvement in a scandal that has implicated a number of lawmakers and government officials who appropriated the seized properties illegally.
The announcement that the confiscated land would be delivered to the Christian Community of the Charismatic Mission Church was made in public in the city of Cali, with the presence of the ex-President Alvaro Uribe, Barreras, church leaders and the ex-director of DNE, Omar Figueroa.
At the event, Uribe publicly called on Barrera to personally deliver land to the church as he was the one who “fought so much for it.”
Figueroa has been imprisoned since 2011 for misappropriation of goods seized from drug traffickers.
MORE: Colombia’s former narcotics director sent to prison
Sources
- El ‘pacto cristiano’ que enreda a Roy Barreras (El Espectador)
- Compromiso de trabajo ( El Espectador)
- Roy Barreras, a indagatoria (El Espectador)