The judicial situation of Nicolás Petro Burgos, eldest son of President Gustavo Petro and former Atlantic deputy, added a new chapter on September 29, after the Attorney General’s Office announced that he opened a statement of positions against him for alleged unjustified patrimonial increase for 2022.
This decision becomes one more link within the chain of processes that have it today under the disciplinary and criminal magnifying glass and according to the Public Ministry, Petro Burgos would have registered an increase in its assets that He finds no justification in his income as a deputy of the Atlantic Assembly.
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According to the file, his formal resources were lower than the expenses he made in that same period, a gap that feeds the suspicions that he obtained money from sources other than his salary as a departmental official, so that the Atlantic Regional Prosecutor’s Office assured that both the former deputy and his ex -partner, Dayssuris Vásquez, were benefited from those movements.
Given this, it must be said that the decision implies that the process enters into the trial stage disciplinary; While the entity stressed that respect for due process and the right of defense of Petro Burgos will be guaranteed, but also insisted that the advance of the file responds to its obligation to ensure transparency in the exercise of public function.
Nicolás Petro Burgos
Vanexa Romero / Portafolio
An additional process
It should be remembered that the announcement of the Attorney General’s Office arrives in a context in which Nicolás Petro already faces strong questions by the Attorney General’s Office, since at the beginning of September, the accusing body confirmed that it will impute it for undue interest in the conclusion of contracts, after an investigation that links it with alleged irregularities committed through the Social Consciousness Foundation.
According to the investigation, the Foundation would have served as a channel to favor contracts in Barranquilla, who ended up directly benefiting the former deputy and their close environment.
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In that file, the Prosecutor’s Office prepares the request for assurance measure and maintains under analysis five millionaire contracts that would have been manipulation; While the process still has no audience date, but it is expected to move forward in the capital of the Atlantic, epicenter of the facts denounced.
In addition, it is not the only open front, since Nicolás Petro is also one step to go to trial for the crimes of illicit enrichment and money laundering. In that case, the Prosecutor’s Office maintains that in 2022 it received around $ 1,054 million without justifying its origin.
Attorney General’s Office
Attorney General’s Office
The accusations suggest that part of these resources would have arrived from entrepreneurs such as Samuel Santander Lopesierra and Gabriel Hilsaca, son of Alfonso “El Turco” Hilsaca, both with a controversy history. Likewise, the file is in the Specialized Court of Barranquilla, where the defense and the Prosecutor’s Office have been contrasting evidence in the final stretch of the preparatory stage.
In this way, the specifications of the Attorney General’s Office adds to a scenario already loaded with judicial and disciplinary processes that revolve around the figure of Nicolás Petro. What began with public complaints of his ex -partner resulted in a cluster of investigations that have led him to respond simultaneously before two of the most relevant control bodies in the country.
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Finally, the political impact does not go unnoticed, since although the processes against them are of a personal nature and do not compromise the president as head of state, the situation inevitably touches the public sphere and generates a media echo that feeds the controversy around the presidential family.
Daniel Hernández Naranjo
Portfolio journalist
