Petro accuses the Attorney General's Office of wanting to “set him up”

The presidential candidate for the left-wing coalition Historic Pact, Gustavo Petro, aroused controversy during this Holy Week despite not having had more than one campaign activity on these holidays. The scandal arose after it became known that Juan Fernando Petro, the politician's brother, had visited Iván Moreno and others convicted of corruption in Bogotá's La Picota prison.

After Petro responded to the La W radio station that Juan Fernando — a worker of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission — was working on a project of social forgiveness with these convicts, politicians from all sectors — including his opponents — responded and even called for him to renounce his presidential aspiration.

The candidate had to go out and explain what his brother is doing in the Inter-Church Commission, he showed the letter inviting the NGO to prison to discuss issues of prisoners' rights and admitted that Juan Fernando Petro was not sent to La Picota on behalf of the campaign.

In the middle of Good Friday, Gustavo Petro answered an interview for Cambio magazine to talk about this and other issues. He added an additional element to the controversy: according to the left-wing candidate, the Attorney General's Office would be carrying out a strategy of encampment against him and his campaign, so that several of his close collaborators act with great caution in certain situations.

The candidate noted that he has been set up on various fronts, such as trying to seduce people close to him with sums of money for the campaign, which would later be marked as hot money before public opinion.

For example, Gustavo Petro said that in an activity that took place at the Hotel Tequendama, where Senator-elect Piedad Córdoba was present, “it is said that there were the Mexicans who end up being from the DEA, who had enough cash, and that they were looking for me under the idea that they were going to make a contribution to the campaign. They thought I was going to get the money in cash, as if I didn't know what happened to that,” he said in the interview.

He also hinted that he did research into the ways in which the Attorney General's Office executes these traps, that the Juan Fernando scandal would be the fourth time they faced an ambush, and that “I'm not so dumb as to let myself get involved in that kind of thing.”

Finally, Gustavo Petro assured that they put the poison in the popular imagination that he was offering penalties to prisoners in exchange for their votes. He insisted that it is false and that he will file legal remedies against those who continue to insist on it, at his own expense and his brother's work.

When asked about whether the rules on extradition would change, the candidate noted that the outgoing president, Iván Duque Márquez, is eager to send people abroad who have answers that some victims want to know.

Regarding alias Otoniel, whose shipment to the United States will take place in the coming days, Gustavo Petro assured that he would like to hear who was pressuring him to assassinate him. He suggested that the former leader of the Gulf Clan would have received pressure from some congressmen to get rid of the leftist candidate.

Petro closed the issue by saying that, if he won the electoral contest, his decisions on extradition would be conditional on compliance with the Final Agreement and the current drug policy.

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