2024-01-10 23:52:59
The surprise conditional release for former minister Andrés Felipe Arias has generated reactions from all political sides, although his main ally, former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, continues without speaking out.
This Wednesday, it was learned that a Bogotá execution court granted conditional freedom to the former Minister of Agriculture who is currently serving a 17-year sentence for the famous Agro Ingreso Seguro case.
In context: Judge granted a prison sentence to the convicted former minister Andrés Felipe Arias
In that case, the Supreme Court of Justice declared him guilty of the crimes of entering into contracts without compliance with legal requirements and embezzlement in favor of third parties.
Thus, during these last months Arias had been serving his sentence in house arrest and had obtained two 72-hour permits to be released from prison and go to other cities to give talks and conferences.
During all this time, Uribismo – and especially former President Álvaro Uribe – have insisted on defending Arias’ supposed innocence, arguing that he did nothing illegal.
In fact, this Wednesday the former president of Congress, Ernesto Macías Tovar, assured that “Andrés Felipe Arias might make mistakes, never a crime. When talking regarding injustices, this case is the greatest example.”
And the senator of the Democratic Center María Fernanda Cabal said something similar, who said that Arias was “a public servant like few others, who paid 10 years in prison without having stolen a peso, without committing war crimes, while others were accused of the worst crimes. “They didn’t pay a day in prison.”
Also read: Court left a firm 17-year sentence once morest Andrés Felipe Arias
The latter, referring to the amnestied ex-combatants of the extinct FARC guerrilla, who received their freedom in exchange for handing over their weapons and offering truth and reparation.
But not everyone is in favor of Arias. Many others have complained that “a man who stole money from our poor farmers,” as one netizen put it, has regained his parole.
That is the case of the representative to the Chamber of the Historical Pact Alejandro Ocampo, who criticized the judicial decision saying that Arias is “another corrupt person for the streets” and that “justice belongs to the ruana. Now the turn is for Andrés Felipe Arias. Do you understand why they don’t want to let Petro govern?”
And Congresswoman María José Pizarro said something similar. “In one week and on the eve of the change of Prosecutor: freedom due to expiration of terms for Arturo Char, resignation of the prosecutor in the cases of Álvaro Uribe and Óscar Iván Zuluaga and conditional freedom for Andrés Felipe Arias. How to build trust in justice if all the country sees are guarantees of impunity for the political elites who have looted the country,” she trilled.
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The truth is that, at least in these first hours, former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez has preferred not to comment on Arias’ freedom, a strange fact considering his closeness and affection for the former minister who, at the time, became one of the most important figures of Uribism.
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