The Prosecutor’s Office will ask to charge Álvaro Leyva with malfeasance due to action after the failed passport tender.
The Attorney General’s Office filed a request for an indictment hearing against the former chancellor before the Superior Court of Bogotá. Álvaro Leyva for the crime of prevarication by actionin the midst of the legal problems caused by the failed tender to produce the passports.
The Attorney General’s Office already sanctioned ten year disability to the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Gustavo Petro’s government, for the moves that aspired to get Thomas Greg & Sons out of the way, the company that has continuously designed the notebooks since 2007.
The Government sought to ensure that Thomas Greg was not the only bidder, which triggered several legal problems since 2023. Leyva, then head of international relations, declared the tender void, and Thomas Greg sued the State.
In the end, the contract has remained tied to the multinational. The Government has declared manifest urgency while it refines the details of a agreement between the National Printing Office and the Portuguese Mint that the Attorney General’s Office already demanded.
You may be interested in: Icetex opens registration in December for postgraduate credits for the 2025-1 semester
The Prosecutor’s Office now hopes that, in addition to disciplinary sanctions, the 83-year-old conservative politician faces criminal consequences. The accusing body assures that the former official “would be responsible for issuing several administrative acts contrary to the law.”
The conflict over the manufacture of passports has cost several members of Petro’s government their jobs. The first to leave was Martha Lucía Zamora, director of the National Legal Defense Agency of the State between August 2022 and December 2023.
Zamora became a key witness against Leyva in the Attorney General’s Office. The former chancellor treated her disrespectfully because she was seeking a conciliation that would prevent the State from paying a million-dollar payment to Thomas Greg due to the untimely end of the passport tender.
Leyva was the second. The Attorney General’s Office suspended him while they investigated him, and then called him to trial, which finally disqualified him. President Petro did not defend him, so from then on the Bogota native became a staunch opponent..
In August of this year, the Public Ministry suspended Alfredo Saade, who served as head of the Presidential Office. Petro kept him in office even a month after Laura Sarabia resigned from the Foreign Ministry.
More news: Peasant market in Bocagrande: schedules, products and everything that will be there this Sunday
The Attorney General’s Office revoked Saade’s suspension in September, as he was no longer a public official. The control entity continues to investigate him for apparent “improper conduct” to pressure the signing of the agreement with the Portuguese Mint.
Sarabia resigned from the Foreign Ministry in July, after being President Petro’s right-hand man. She is now ambassador to the United Kingdom. He left his position amid confrontations with Saade for the awarding of the passport contract.
