Colombian police have not complied with the Prosecutor General’s demand that they publicly apologize to former politician Sigifredo Lopez for wrongly accusing him of participating in his own kidnapping by FARC guerrillas.
After Lopez was acquitted on Thursday of all charges against him, Attorney General Eduardo Montealegre announced that the police were required to apologize for errors made during the investigation against the former official.
National Police Director General Jose Roberto Leon Riaño has said that police need to further investigate the situation and speak directly with Montealegre before making a public apology, according to El Tiempo.
Montealegre stated Friday that the demand from the Prosecutor General’s Office “is not an arbitrary decision made by the National Police, the decision is made by the prosecutor,” according to Semana. Monealegre said that the Police must comply with the judicial decision and if not could incur an offense of fraud of a legal ruling.
Authorities arrested Lopez in May of this year for his alleged complicity in his own kidnapping along with 11 other politicians in 2002. His colleagues were assassinated five years later by FARC guerrillas and Lopez was the sole survivor of the 12 kidnapped deputies of the Valle del Cauca department.
Though a demobilized guerrilla asserted that the former politician had assisted the FARC’s 30th Front with the kidnapping, Lopez maintained from the beginning that he was innocent and the case against him was officially dropped Thursday.
