Inpec requisitioned the cells of corrupt and parapolitical people who met with Juan Fernando Petro

The controversy of “social forgiveness” surrounding presidential candidate Gustavo Petro continues to generate something to talk about and has even generated problems inside La Picota prison. The newspaper El Tiempo learned that this Monday, April 18, the Inpec Immediate Reaction Command (CRI) carried out a cell-by-cell search of those convicted and prosecuted for parapolitics and corruption.

At 7:00 in the morning, CRI officials arrived at the ERE South Pavilion of the prison in search of prohibited items. The cells of former senator Iván Moreno, parapolitical Alvaro 'el Gordo' García and former mayor of Villavicencio Francisco Chaparro were requisitioned; the three had a meeting with Juan Fernando Petro, brother of the aspirant of the Historical Pact.

According to the media outlet, they also reviewed the detention spaces of former congressman Manuel Antonio Carebilla and former head of the National Narcotics Directorate Carlos Albornoz.

It is important to remember that the minor of the Petro Urrego was in the prison on April 8 for a scheduled visit by the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace (CIJP), of which he has long been a part. The presidential candidate explained at the time that his brother's presence in La Picota was not related to his election campaign.

In context: Gustavo Petro clarifies that he did not send his brother to talk to Iván Moreno

This position is supported by a statement issued by the CIJP. In this, the Commission assured that the purpose of entering the ERE 2 courtyard, by Petro and the defender Danilo Rueda, was to participate in a process of rapprochement and dialogue with different actors in the country in the construction of guarantees of non-repetition.

The position of the INPEC union

The Union of Prison Workers (UTP) rejected by means of a press release the media situation that Juan Fernando Petro's visit to La Picota has had. “We categorically reject the fact that political campaigns have on their agenda turning our institutions into a reality show,” the union said.

The UTP noted that due to the controversy, the integrity of visitors entering prisons is being put at risk. “Every day, personalities arrive in prisons who bring possible solutions to the serious prison crisis that the system suffers for decades,” they said in the document. In turn, they called on the Minister of Justice, Wilson Ruiz, and the director general of INPEC, Colonel Tito Yesid Castellanos, not to allow prisons to become “the political soap opera of the moment”.

The document also sends a message to other presidential candidates such as Federico Gutiérrez and Sergio Fajardo: “They propose liquidation of the entity seeking a labor massacre of 16,000 administrative officers and the national custody and surveillance corps.” The UTP indicated, in turn, that Rodolfo Hernández, the aspirant to arrive at the Casa de Nariño, “does not remove us from bandits, criminals, regardless of the fact that we have sustained an anachronistic, ambiguous, unconstitutional system, the product of misrule and the abandonment of the state.”

The statement once again expresses the union's support for Gustavo Petro in the upcoming elections, because his government plan “has proposed to humanize and strengthen the system” along with “real resocialization.” The union recalled that visitors to prisons are protected by the habeas data law. In addition, “these individuals cannot be followed up without a court order.”

KEEP READING: