A strong controversy has generated a request made by the mayor of Cali, Jorge Iván Ospina, to the National Government to stop the prison emergency from being decreed, due to the fire that occurred in the Tuluá prison, which has left 53 detainees dead and more than 20 injured so far.
According to the president of the Valle del Cauca capital, situations like these make a reform of the prison system imminent.
“We insist and ask the National Government to decree a prison emergency because there are some very serious problems of overcrowding, illegal behavior, painful realities”said the local president.
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In this situation, the Minister of Justice, Wilson Ruiz, lashed out at Mayor Ospina. “The mayor of Cali has always been off base, I think he has to read Law 65 of year 93 of the National Development Plan, he is in arrearsBetter that he follow the example like Barranquilla and other cities in the country that are building prison centers to be able to serve the syndicated prisoners, it is a legal obligation so that is what he has to do first, “he said.
The senior official said Valle del Cauca is one of the most crowded departments in Colombia and from the National Government they have collaborated harmoniously to solve this problem.
“What happened in the municipality of Tuluá, A large part of those 53 prisoners who have died were unionized, when this obligation of the unionized is of the mayors and governors, It is up to us as the National Government to attend to the condemned”, emphasized Minister Ruiz.
In addition, he specified that if the mayors and governors had built prison centers in the last 29 years, the country would not have overcrowding.
Given this response, Mayor Ospina did not remain silent and through his Twitter account he replied. “Now it turns out that the minister wants to transfer to the mayors the horrifying situation experienced in the prison system that has recently killed 53 inmates in Tuluá. No Minister, there is a national prison crisis and you must assume it, the one that is off base is you”.
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Finally, Ruiz assured that It is unheard of that, since 1993, the leaders in each of the country’s regions have barely built around 2,800 prison spaces.
