The investigation against Senator Armando Benedetti for alleged acts of corruption in Fonade, it follows from a complaint filed by the lawyer Jaime Lombana in 2017, when he asserted before the Supreme Court that that entity had “surrendered to the politicians of the U party”.
According to the complaint, “Fonade would be used as a bureaucratic quota” of those politicians among whom was named Benedetti, Musa Besaile, and Bernardo ‘el ñoño’ Elías, the last two involved in the Odebrecht scandal.
Lawyer Lombana assured that the senator allegedly “sold the indicative quotas” to Besaile so that the Fonade contracts could be used in his own way, even they would have handed over those involved in the ‘toga cartel’.
In May 2019, the former governor of Córdoba, Alejandro Lyons and the lawyer Leonardo Pinilla (the last one implicated in the cartel) testified before the Court. Pinilla assured that supposedly helped the prosecutor Daniel Díaz – prosecuted by the hemophilia cartel – to deliver a contract in the Fonade to his girlfriend through the then director of that entity Ariel Aduen.
In May of that same year, engineer Juan Madero also testified that allegedly during 2017 and 2018 Benedetti had hired him to protect his cell phones and “intercept lawyer Jaime Lombana.”
while José Iván Henao, then adviser to the Fonade managementsaid before the Court that he allegedly helped Benedetti in the process of awarding the Certicamara SA contract.
An investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office that is in court indicates that Elsy Pinzón, then a member of the Benedetti UTL, Apparently, he visited the Fonade 30 times together with Carlos Santofimio, “allegedly the intermediary of that contract.”
Benedetti’s defense assured in the investigation to which his client was summoned before the Court that he will allow the evidence in his favor to prove his innocence. ANDhe process is in the office of Judge Cristina Lombana.
The magistrate’s office also has the versions of the former senators Musa Besaile and Bernardo Elías Vidal, who accepted that “from the government they were informed of the assignment of Fonade to the party of the National Union “La U” -of which they were militants-, to his political management.
