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Luz Adriana Camargo Garzon will lead the investigation into President Petro and his son after weeks of delays within the nomination course of.
Colombia’s Supreme Courtroom has chosen Luz Adriana Camargo Garzon because the nation’s new legal professional basic, amid continued turmoil for President Gustavo Petro’s authorities.
Camargo was a former choose who labored for the legal professional basic’s workplace for 12 years beginning within the Nineties. She additionally served as a prosecutor on the Supreme Courtroom, the place she investigated hyperlinks between lawmakers and right-wing paramilitary teams.
She’s going to lead a number of delicate investigations, together with an investigation into allegations of unlawful financing in Petro’s 2022 presidential marketing campaign.
The legal professional basic’s workplace can be prosecuting Petro’s eldest son Nicolas, a former provincial lawmaker, for alleged corruption and cash laundering, as a part of an investigation that started greater than a 12 months in the past.
“With 18 votes, Luz Adriana Camargo Garzon was elected the nation’s new legal professional basic,” Supreme Courtroom President Gerson Chaverra instructed reporters on Tuesday. A complete of 23 judges had been eligible to vote.
The earlier legal professional basic – Francisco Barbosa, a distinguished Petro critic – noticed his four-year time period finish in February. Camargo’s appointment comes amid weeks of political tensions and protests over delays in appointing an official to the function.
In January, Petro offered three candidates to the Supreme Courtroom to succeed Barbosa after promising to fill the looming emptiness with a lady. However the voting course of had stalled within the weeks that adopted.
Final month, tons of of pro-Petro protesters surrounded the Supreme Courtroom to show in opposition to the delay.
The United Nations and the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights referred to as for Barbosa’s alternative to be named rapidly, with none extra stress on the court docket.
On Tuesday, earlier than Camargo was elected, there was one other shakeup within the course of: Amelia Perez, lengthy thought of the frontrunner to fill the function, introduced she would withdraw her candidacy.
Perez’s prospects had deteriorated in latest days after her husband’s social media posts turned the topic of scandal.
Based on publications akin to Semana journal, Perez’s husband Gregorio Oviedo had used his on-line platforms to insult the Supreme Courtroom and different judges, and to quash the investigation into Petro’s son.
Petro himself has criticized the legal professional basic’s workplace for its investigations into his marketing campaign, and he has denied any wrongdoing. Petro, the primary left-wing president in Colombia’s trendy historical past, additionally confronted fierce opposition from right-wing lawmakers.
Previous to her appointment on Tuesday, Camargo labored for the Worldwide Fee Towards Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) between 2014 and 2017, the place she led its investigative crew. Whereas serving in that function, she was a colleague of present Protection Secretary Ivan Velasquez.
Carmago additionally consulted with the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights within the case of three Ecuadorian journalists who had been kidnapped and murdered by a Colombian armed group.
As Colombia’s new legal professional basic, Carmago will oversee a case alleging that the youthful Petro acquired cash from accused drug traffickers in change for favorable therapy in his father’s ‘Whole Peace’ plan – a framework for ending of the armed battle that has gripped Colombia for nearly 60 years. 12 months.
Carmago will even deal with the long-running case in opposition to right-wing former President Alvaro Uribe for witness tampering and fraud, allegedly a part of a scheme to discredit allegations that he had ties to paramilitary teams.
Uribe has denied the allegations in opposition to him.
Colombia appoints legal professional basic amid political unrest underneath Gustavo Petro | Courts Information
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