“They do not have the moral authority to pretend to lead the country”: Federico Gutiérrez to Petro for visits to La Picota

The political storm that triggered the visit of Juan Fernando Petro, brother of the candidate of the Historical Pact, to corrupt and parapolitical prisoners in La Picota does not diminish. Federico Gutiérrez took advantage of the situation to launch his anti-corruption proposal and expose several criticisms of the one who, according to the polls, is his main contender.

The former mayor of Medellín gave a statement to the media from outside the La Picota prison to ensure that his government will seek to tighten penalties. “Here there has to be a frontal fight against the corrupt, not to seek benefits or votes in exchange for penalties,” he said.

Juan Fernando Petro's visit to Iván Moreno, Álvaro El Gordo García and other politicians and parapolitics convicted of corruption and homicide in that prison sparked a strong controversy for the reasons, in the midst of a political campaign, behind that meeting. In the midst of false news and audios of doubtful veracity, an alleged offer of reductions of sentences has been woven together.

“What happened last week, while Colombian families were in spaces of reflection and recollection, and seeing how the other campaign came to this place to seek votes from the corrupt and worst violent murderers in the country, to seek those votes in exchange for penalties or such social forgiveness, is one of the worst scandals that the country has experienced. It is a moral meltdown against the country. I call on the authorities to investigate it,” Gutierrez said.

The candidate of the Team for Colombia assured that prisons are not spaces for resocialization and instead are functioning as crime universities, so they require reform. However, his proposal goes to stronger convictions against those who commit corruption.

In this regard, he assured that he will seek political death for corrupt officials, who cannot be re-elected or administered public resources again, despite the fact that this requires a reform of justice that allows permanent convictions, and the extinction of ownership of property acquired with resources of corruption. Likewise, it will seek to implement SECOP II throughout public procurement and achieve 50% implementation of the standard specifications.

“I am on this site to announce to the corrupt, the violent and the murderers that they stay in jail. That in our government there will be no reduction of penalties for them and that on the contrary we are going to seek an increase in penalties for the corrupt over 40 years,” Gutiérrez said.

Despite the explanations of the Historical Pact, Gutiérrez maintained that the meeting in La Picota of “the other campaign” was part of a pact to seek votes in exchange for reduced sentences. “They are leading to a scenario where criminal structures in the country force people to vote for the other candidate. I come here to reaffirm that not only will the corrupt not get out of prison, we are going to propose to increase sentences to more than 40 years, end those privileges in those wards, such as the Ere Sur Pavilion, where the other candidate's brother entered, to negotiate votes with penalties reductions,” he said.

Juan Fernando Petro denied that he had gone on behalf of his brother Gustavo Petro, as well as that the meeting was talking about reducing penalties or benefits. According to Noticias UNO, this version would have been created through a document shared by a lawyer close to Kiko Gómez, who is close to the paramilitary Marcos Figueroa and who later broadcast an audio supposedly supporting the Covenant candidate.

“It's not normal when known criminals in the country begin to supposedly send invitations to their people to vote for those candidates,” added Gutierrez, who said that the possibility of encampment was an excuse because “they were caught red-handed.”

“They don't have the moral authority today to pretend to run the country. This is very serious, it is not just any situation within a campaign. What has been discovered, but that they themselves were the ones who discovered it, and then they try to say that it is an entrapment, that it is a montage of the media. No, they're the ones who have to answer. In addition, we must not forget that he also came to propose a certain JEP for drug traffickers, this cannot be a moral decline,” Gutiérrez said.

The latter refers to a statement in February, in which Petro stated that one way to peacefully dismantle drug trafficking would be through a 'JEP for drug traffickers', with collective submission and legal benefits for non-repetition.

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