[RSS][Colombia] Colombia’s former police chief arrested over influence peddling

[RSS]

Police in Colombia’s capital Bogota arrested their former director, retired General Rodolfo Palomino, who was sentenced to a seven years in prison on Friday.

The sentence came months after the Supreme Court convicted Palomino for trying to prevent the arrest of a businessman on land theft charges in 2014.

The businessman, Luis Gonzalo Gallo, has since submitted to war crimes tribunal JEP, which is investigating his alleged ties to the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC.

The court found that the then-National Police chief visited the home of the prosecutor who had requested Gallo’s arrest in an attempt to suspend the legal proceedings.

According to the Supreme Court, Palomino told prosecutor Sonia Lucero that Gallo was a man with a lot of power and relations with former presidents.

Consequently, the businessman’s arrest would be a “very serious” matter, the former police chief told the prosecutor, who recorded the incident on her cell phone.

Since the incident that got Palomino in legal trouble, the JEP took over investigations into Gallo’s alleged role in the mass theft of land by ranchers and the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC in the northwestern Uraba region.

The post Colombia’s former police chief arrested over influence peddling appeared first on Colombia News.


Source: https://colombiareports.com/colombias-f ... -peddling/