The avalanche of complaints about cases of corruption in the Mayor’s Office of Medellín has been such that the attorney general himself, Francisco Barbosa, decided to create a special group to investigate them.
Several of the cases would touch Mayor Daniel Quintero directly, but the Prosecutor clarified that there are also cases denounced by Quintero himself.
For Barbosa, the issue is so critical that he put Deputy Prosecutor Martha Mancera and the Anti-Corruption Directorate in charge of this special group.
Prosecutor Francisco Barbosa was personally in Medellin this week to launch the tasks with the sectional Prosecutor’s Office and – in an interview with EL COLOMBIANO – also revealed that in a matter of two weeks an important announcement will be made in criminal matters about “improper hiring” that he said appeared in Hidroituango.
There are many complaints in the city against Daniel Quintero’s mayor’s office, but the public does not know whether or not there are investigations in the Prosecutor’s Office. What does it say to the city?
“I come to Medellín to collect not only those concerns and those complaints, we are also creating a technical prioritization table, headed by the Vice Prosecutor’s Office, the National Anticorruption Directorate and the Medellín Section, to try to accumulate and put all those complaints on the table. , not only if there is something against the Mayor but against different sectors of the municipality. It seeks to determine if there is sufficient evidence, if there is sufficient evidence, and if there is support in these evidentiary complaints. We, of course, will be informing the citizens and the country of the results. The truth is that there is a great interest in the Prosecutor’s Office to try to clarify this, what happens in Medellín, which means that there is a judicial response to these issues or, if there is no viability of the complaints, then we will file; That is part of the explanation. There is great interest from the Prosecutor’s Office to help Medellín so that things work well and that justice, of course, operates when there are elements.
Tell us what the technical table is, is it a special group to investigate possible corruption in Medellín?
“It is a special group, in which there will be some prosecutors led by the Deputy Attorney General, Martha Mancera, who has a judicial police so that the complaints do not reach us in an isolated way, but that they all reach that group. This group will also follow up on the investigations to determine what the results are for each one. When there are elements, we will make decisions. What the Prosecutor’s Office is not going to do is make judicial decisions without evidence.”
How many complaints have you received about the Medellín Mayor’s Office or how many investigations have you started?
“There is an important group of complaints, which are not only made against Dr. Quintero’s administration but, at the same time, there are complaints made by Dr. Quintero against other people. Everything has to be framed in this. What has happened is that in Bogotá we have been noticing an unusual increase in different complaints on different issues, which are not only against the Mayor, but also against various sectors of the municipality in which these types of circumstances arise. What we do at the table is bring all these cases, put them in consideration of the prosecutors and determine the results.
Are there any cases with special advance? The All for Medellin watchdog has filed at least five specific complaints…
“They will understand that in each complaint at the stage we are in, which is an investigation, the evidence is reserved and we cannot say anything at all. This Prosecutor’s Office is characterized by speaking with results and saying things when they are consolidated. We are not going to advance information in this regard until this same investigative group says what it has done in the framework of these complaints in Medellín.”
When does that investigative group begin to operate?
“It is already operating. In fact, we came to Medellín to start putting it into operation. We already have a strategy. Precisely, we had a meeting with the Sectional Director of Medellín to obtain an explanation of what has been happening in the city: what complaints there are, what the progress is, look at it case by case. And we also have some that are in Bogotá. So, what we are going to do is try to accumulate them and start working quickly to determine which ones are likely to have a quicker judicial response; and those that do not have any type of vocation or clarity from the evidentiary point of view, because we will also proceed to file, if necessary”.
The case of the Governor of Antioquia is still in suspense and in some circles of the department it is commented that there would be a new insurance measure. How is this process going?
“The Governor has an accusation, which was formalized on December 6, before the First Instance Chamber of the Supreme Court. This person is on trial and the process is, then, in the Supreme Court, not in the Prosecutor’s Office.”
The Prosecutor’s Office has already finished its management in this case…
“Both in that case, and in the case of former Governor Sergio Fajardo, the two cases are before the Court, which is the stage in which they have to defend themselves and have to present their arguments.”
Let’s talk about Hidroituango. There has been a crossroads of complaints between Mayor Quintero and the construction consortium; the Mayor insists that the consortium used elements of low quality and the consortium that has said that this is not true announced a complaint against him for libel. What is this process in?
“We are going to make some decisions on the Hidroituango case in a couple of weeks.
On what specific topic?
“On some issues that have to do with the improper hiring that existed and some irregularities within the Hidroituango project.”
What implications would that have for the project?
“It is only for those involved, because there is one thing that has to be distinguished and that is that the project has some dynamics and, of course, criminal responsibility has others. Those who committed crimes or acted against the law have some sanctions. The Prosecutor’s Office will rule on that in a couple of weeks.”
This means that there is already a decision made…
“The decision has been made and you know that the prosecutors are autonomous and independent, they make the decisions and, of course, what we do in the Prosecutor’s Office is already determine, as the prosecutors do, when all these latest actions are complied with. that have to do with the judicial police, with the way of organizing the request for an indictment hearing, in case it is presented, of the people who are involved or implicated in this.”
Will there be catches in this case?
“What I am saying is an action procedure of the Prosecutor’s Office. Not necessarily when the Prosecutor’s Office acts, it does so by requesting arrests. The Prosecutor’s Office makes decisions in cases; The Prosecutor’s Office can, for example, request a hearing to formulate charges, can request arrest warrants before guarantee judges, can request security measures of a different order in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure, but this does not necessarily imply arrests. What it implies is an action by the Prosecutor’s Office in the case of Hidroituango”.
Another issue is that the Prosecutor’s Office said that Antioquia is one of the departments with the highest electoral risk. Where does that high-risk rating come from and what does it imply?
“The electoral risk map that we have in the Prosecutor’s Office was built by a dependency, which is the Public Policy Directorate, which has also been feeding all the electoral information in the country. There is a high risk in Antioquia because various elements are taken into account, such as the electoral census, the presence of criminal organizations, illegal mining, the situation of social leaders, the massacres or collective homicides that have been committed in the department, and we begin to make a series of variables. All are used to build the electoral risk map for the Prosecutor’s Office.”
What did they detect to establish that risk?
“In Bajo Cauca Antioquia there is an important presence of the Clan del Golfo, redoubts of what has been constituted as Los Caparros, there are dissidences of the Farc and the ELN. This also occurs in the areas of Necoclí, Turbó, Apartadó, Chigorodó. We also have some problems in southwest Antioquia, where there have been massacres in the last year and it is an area where the Clan del Golfo is. It is evident that this is a department that has great complexities, so we expect that in some places there will be some tensions around the electoral issue. But the institution, the Attorney General’s Office, is fully activated.”
And how is the Prosecutor’s Office acting specifically to curb that risk?
“We have itinerant groups throughout the national territory, and in the areas where there is a greater problem, these groups will be ready, with their own judicial police and investigative lines, because all complaints already have a channel and reach different sections of the Prosecutor’s Office, such as the Human Rights Directorate or the Territorial Security Delegate, or the Investigation Unit in case we are talking about the Comunes Party, or social leaders or people who participate in the elections of the special districts of peace and who have some type of incidence or problems, as long as the first hypothesis is political participation. The Prosecutor’s Office is fully active in all departments.”
Do you have complaints or alerts for vote rigging?
“We have three variables. The first is the electoral map and there are some crimes there; there are also some electoral and other post-electoral variables. Within what is called vote racketeering or any type of instigation to the voter, such as constraint or other crimes, there are some lines of work. Many of these figures appear in the last days of the elections and we are very attentive. We have a permanent unified command post and a national prioritization table, in which these types of complaints also arrive, and we, hand in hand with the Sijín or the Dijín and at the same time with the Army, the Registry, the Ministry of the Interior, the Comptroller , Office of the Attorney General, we can work together”.