The Colombian Prosecutor General’s Office opened an inquiry Thursday into Supreme Court magistrate Luis Javier Osorio’s claim that attempts were made to buy his vote in the election of a new prosecutor general.
El Espectador revealed Osorio’s allegation that jobs were offered to his relatives in exchange for his vote for Margarita Cabello Blanco in the latest round of the elections, held Tuesday.
Incoming Interior and Justice Minister German Vargas Lleras labeled the allegations “worrying.”
Cabello denied any involvement in bribery. “The only thing that I can say is that I was not responsible for these actions, I have always behaved within the correct parameters,” she said.
After three hours of voting on Tuesday, the Supreme Court magistrates failed to elect a new national prosecutor general for the sixteenth time in a year, because they could not reach a consensus on which candidate should fill the position.
Cabello has for some time led the voting as the most popular candidate, but has failed to attract the sixteen votes needed to win the position.
President Alvaro Uribe’s outgoing administration presented a bill to the nation’s House of Representatives at the end of July proposing that the responsibility for selecting the country’s prosecutor general be transferred from the Supreme Court to the president.
