Colombia remains in suspense due to the revelations that Petro's son has promised to Justice

The scope of the collaboration with the Justice of Nicolás Petro Burgos, eldest son of the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, has the country in suspense, which awaits to know the revelations about corruption cases that the first-born promised to make to the Prosecutor's Office starting this Thursday .

The question Colombians are asking themselves this Wednesday is whether Petro Burgos, who according to his ex-wife, Daysuris Vásquez, also detained, received illegal money for his father's presidential campaign – which ultimately never reached its destination, as he used it for his own benefit. -, will share what he knows about campaign finance.

“How much can the denunciations that deputy Nicolás Petro will deliver to the Prosecutor's Office destabilize Gustavo Petro? It is curious that the 'soft coup' that the Government was talking about did not take place, but a 'hard coup' has developed that comes from the same presidential family,” political analyst Juan Carlos Flórez wrote on Twitter today.

The president's son is a deputy to the Asamblea del Atlántico, a department in northern Colombia where complaints of vote buying are frequent at election time.

Petro Burgos, 37 years old and arrested on Saturday in Barranquilla along with his ex-wife, was charged this Tuesday in Bogotá for the crimes of money laundering and illicit enrichment after a prosecutor questioned his assets, clearly incompatible with his income as regional deputy.

campaign finance

Illegal campaign financing returned to public discussion in Colombia last June after Armando Benedetti, a former ambassador to Venezuela who was key to Petro's 2022 electoral triumph on the Atlantic coast, threatened to reveal what he knows.

It is unknown if what Petro Burgos promised to reveal to the Prosecutor's Office is related to what Benedetti said, a doubt that may begin to be clarified this Thursday when the president's son is taken to a new hearing of the Prosecutor's Office, to which he promised to collaborate exchange for a reduced sentence.

“I want to announce to Colombia that we have decided to start a collaboration process where I will refer to new facts and situations that will help Justice. I do it for my family and for my baby who is on the way,” Petro Burgos said at Tuesday's hearing in which the charges were brought against him.

The decision of Petro's son to collaborate with Justice surprised the country and was not well received by some members of his defense, which Juan Trujillo Cabrera, one of his lawyers, resigned today.

“Because it is of general interest, I inform public opinion that today I have renounced the legal representation of the processes that are brought against Nicolás Petro Burgos, due to a difference in criteria that prevent me from continuing to lead the case,” Trujillo said in a statement.

extrajudicial controversies

In the midst of the political uproar that has caused the arrest and indictment of Petro's eldest son and his ex-wife -she for the crimes of money laundering and violation of personal data because she spied on her ex-husband's current partner-, the Prosecutor's Office denied this Wednesday that he infiltrated an agent in the security team of Petro Burgos.

According to journalist Daniel Coronell, Petro Burgos “decided to collaborate with the Prosecutor's Office and announce accusations” because “the evidence that persuaded him to turn around came from an undercover agent planted in his security scheme.”

“It is not true that the specialized technique of an undercover agent was used within the security scheme of Mr. Petro Burgos,” the Prosecutor's Office responded to that journalistic version in a statement in which it added: “All the actions established in this process are framed in current legal and constitutional proceedings”.

The political scandal, which has overtones of a soap opera with scenes of jealousy between Nicolás Petro's ex-wife and his current wife, eight months pregnant, rose in tone with the release of an audio in which Sofía, another of the president's daughters, He harshly reproaches his brother for his womanizing behavior and tells him that his current wife will not enter the presidential family.