A Bogota judge ordered Colombia’s former finance and interior ministers be sent to jail while they are being tried on corruption charges.
According to the prosecution, Finance Minister Ricardo Bonilla and former Interior Minister Luis Fernando Velasco played major roles in the embezzlement of funds from disaster management agency UNGRD.
The prosecution requested the court to place Bonilla and Velasco under house arrest for the duration of the trial.
Magistrate Aura Rosero ruled that the accusations and flight risk were such that the former ministers will have to try to defend their innocence while in jail.
The defense and the delegate of the Inspector General’s Office said they would appeal the decision.
According to the prosecution, Bonilla and Velasco were “leading, promoting, and directing” a “criminal organization” that allegedly bought the support of members of Congress through the allocation of development projects to their districts.
According to the prosecution, the ministers allegedly ordered disaster management agency UNGRD and road infrastructure agency Invias to award projects with a value of $161 million (COP 612 billion) in exchange for lawmakers’ support of government that were pending in Congress between 2023 and 2024.
The prosecutor failed to specify the eight congressmen who allegedly benefitted from the “pork barrel” deals or provide evidence to suggest irregularities in the negotiations between government and representatives.
Instead, the prosecutor reiterated that the former ministers intended to negotiate “with members of Congress so that, in exchange for the projects, they would vote favorably for the government projects,” which is not necessarily illegal.
Bonilla and Velasco have insisted that they did nothing illegal.
They have claimed that the admittedly corrupt former UNGRD directors Olmedo Lopez and Sneyder Pinilla sought to incriminate members of the administration of President Gustavo Petro in an attempt to be granted immunity or a reduced sentence.
The ongoing court case is part of a major investigation into corruption at the UNGRD, which has cost the agency more than $60 million since 2022, according to the Comptroller General’s Office.
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