Colombia’s former Inspector General Edgardo Maya left his successor
Alejandro Ordoñez a completed investigation and a conviction of current
Welfare Minister Diego Palacio and ambassador to Rome Sabas Pretelt de
la Vega, but the ruling ended up in the bin of Ordoñez, weekly Semana
revealed Sunday.
According to the magazine, the former Inspector General had completed his investigation and concluded the two officials were guilty of “gross misconduct” for offering bribes to former congresswoman Yidis Medina to persuade her to vote in favor of the 2006 re-election of President Álvaro Uribe.
Maya ruled Palacio and Pretelt should be dismissed and forbidden to perform any public function for respectively 10 and 13 years.
Alejandro Ordoñez announced he would not continue his predecessor’s ‘Yidispolitica’ investigation just days after his inauguration in February. The new Inspector General said he preferred to start anew. A month later, Ordoñez concluded there was not enough evidence to continue the investigation and absolved the two officials.
Last week, the Inspector General said there was no contradiction in the fact that Yidis Medina was convicted for the bribery, while the Minister and the Ambassador were not investigated, because of the lack of evidence.
In an interview with Noticias Uno, Maya denied leaving his successor a completed investigation and says the document — that was signed by the Inspector General’s Special Investigation’s Office — may have been a draft and was never signed by him.
According to Noticias Uno, Mayo went on a holiday when his investigators finished the document in December and returned days before leaving office in January.
The criminal investigation of the Prosecutor General’s Office against the accused officials is still pending.
