This Friday, May 27, very early, the presidential candidate Gustavo Petro shared an image of the meeting he held with the former auxiliary magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice and former United Nations commissioner, Iván Velásquez.
Although the meeting, according to the presidential candidate of the Historical Pact, was to talk regarding issues related to strategies for the fight once morest corruption, the image generated discomfort in former President Álvaro Uribe.
The former president pointed out that Velásquez “damaged justice with his political bias.”
“I see what the corruption is. Judge Iván Velásquez damaged justice with his political bias. One thing was the university and another to be an auxiliary magistrate of the Court, ”said Uribe, in response to the photo published by Petro on his Twitter account.
And then, through a video on his social networks, Uribe expanded on the reasons for his discomfort: “Iván Velásquez, auxiliary magistrate of the Supreme Court, the investigator once morest parapolitics, Farcpolitics unpunished. Iván Velásquez, delegated by the UN to investigate political corruption in Guatemala and now an adherent of Gustavo. Please! What trust can there be?
And then he sentenced: “It is urgent to reform justice so that the swivel chair between politics and the high courts is avoided.”
Between 2006 and 2012, Velásquez coordinated the commission in charge of investigating relations between members of the Congress of the Republic and paramilitarism, in the scandal known as parapolitics, which led the Supreme Court to order the investigation, for crimes once morest humanity, once morest elected politicians thanks to the commission of massacres, selective homicides and massive displacements carried out by paramilitary groups.
From October 2013 to September 2019, the former magistrate was the International Commissioner once morest Impunity in Guatemala.
Velásquez and Uribe have a longstanding feud that It even led them, three years ago, to be face to face in a process for libel and slander that forced the former president to render a free version in the Supreme Court.
The process originated in a lawsuit filed by the former magistrate once morest Uribe, because the former president made a series of accusations once morest him on Twitter.
For example, in August 2018, Uribe asked Guatemala to annul Velásquez’s “judicial activity” in the Commission Against Impunity. “Guatemala must suppress the judicial activity of Iván Velásquez, a biased extremist militant, and of Pinilla Cogollo, who was a member of a criminal group. Judicial politicking does not defeat corruption”.
It should be remembered that, in 2019, the then president of Guatemala Jimmy Morales decided not to renew the mandate of the commission chaired by Velásquez and which was to run until September of that year.
The meeting with Peter
During the meeting between Petro and the former magistrate, as detailed by the candidate of the Historical Pact, they discussed how, if they reached the Casa de Nariño, both would free “a thorough fight once morest corruption”.
Likewise, the candidate for the Historical Pact highlighted in three points, what they spoke at the meeting.
According to Petro, there was talk of the possibility of creating an independent commission that would be requested from the United Nations to investigate acts of corruption in Colombia; the transfer of the Attorney General’s Office to the judiciary, and the “elimination of the intermediary role of congressmen in the execution of the budget.”
