“It should be the competent authorities and not anonymous persons whose interests are unknown who provide clarity on the ongoing investigations,” wrote President Gustavo Petro a statement, from Germany, in the middle of a diplomatic visit. The phrase is in response to an interview published 12 hours earlier in digital media Semana, in which an anonymous source confirmed that the cash someone stole from the home of former chief of staff Laura Sarabia belonged to the president: 3,000 million pesos. And that he knew about the money from Colonel Óscar Dávila, who worked in the presidency and was found dead in his car on Friday night – confirmation of the causes of death is still awaiting forensic medicine. In the interview there is only this anonymous voice saying that he knows some of this from hearsay and not as a direct witness and he has no corroborating sources to confirm that the President delivered that amount to Sarabia.
“These alleged testimonies, which have a defamatory interest against the President of the Republic, are aimed at undermining citizens’ trust in the national government through versions of events for which no evidence whatsoever is presented or exists,” adds the President’s statement . And he categorically denies having 3,000 million pesos: “Never in my life have I seen the amount of money claimed by an anonymous source and used by the journalist Vicky Dávila for a publication in Semana magazine.” He points out pointed out that the statements made by this person “have a defamatory character”. The President then added a second, less diplomatic, tweet against the magazine. “Liar”, call her.
According to the anonymous source who spoke to Semana, Colonel Dávila conducted part of the operation to bring to light the money lost in the chief of staff’s home (originally there was talk of $7,000), such as by handing over the former babysitter one lie detectors and other Presidency employees, or the illegal tapping of the phones of two domestic workers at Sarabia’s home. Dávila managed to get 268 million back, the anonymous source says, although he doesn’t explain how. And, he adds, the colonel is very nervous about the investigation that prosecutors are conducting to solve the wiretapping case. He says another police colonel, the president’s security chief, Carlos Feria, has demanded that he hire attorney Miguel Ángel del Río, a Petrist ally, to defend him. “And who sent Fair? Well, for obvious reasons, President Petro,” says the anonymous source. The anonymous source says he recommended Colonel Dávila not to hire Del Río because he has close ties to the government and because he is already defending a patrol officer who is under investigation for the wiretapping. The interviewer and director of the magazine, Vicky Dávila, expressed a similar sentiment as the anonymous source in his twitter accountbefore publishing the interview: “The fact that Dr. Miguel Ángel del Río is an attorney for police officers involved in shootings raises suspicions.”
The Semana magazine article is based on the statement that the government has selected attorney Del Rio to act as counsel for the police officers involved in the investigation. fake.
The article disqualifies the family by stating that Colonel Dávila did not speak to them but assumed…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 15, 2023
On the other hand, Del Río had said Wednesday morning in journalist Daniel Coronell’s radio report on W Radio that Colonel Dávila had contacted him through people other than Colonel Feria: This was done with the help of two former members of the National Guard Police, ex-Sergeant Wadith Velásquez and Major Jefferson Tocarruncho. Del Río has claimed that whoever pushed Colonel Dávila to the limit was not Feria or President Petro, but prosecutor Francisco Barbosa (a major critic of the president) and prosecutor officials. The day before the Colonel’s death, Dávila met with Del Río: “He came to tell me that the prosecutor’s office was threatening him. “They warned him that they would not stop until blood was shed,” the criminal said.
The toughest battle the President has ever faced is political in nature, but there is another media battle in which Semana magazine was the protagonist, a media outlet that is extremely critical of the President. Petro included a bullet point in his statement stating that he maintains a friendship with the owners of this magazine, the Gilinski family, and that he has never “benefited in any way” from that friendship. “The owners of the magazine themselves are first-class witnesses to my honor and I showed them this, for example, during my debate as a young parliamentarian on the merger between Banco de Colombia and Banco Industrial Colombiano,” says the president of a legal dispute between the two in the late 1990s Gilinskis and the Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño, which has flared up again in recent years but recently came to a truce. “I have always asked for an agreement to be reached in transparency,” says the President.
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One point in the statement defends his career, his handling of money. A point that is no longer about anonymous sources or slander, and that is not addressed to Vicky Dávila, but directly to the owners of the magazine she runs.
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