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President Gustavo Petro announced the departure of Laura Sarabia, his chief of staff, and the ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, from the government. These close collaborators of the Colombian president have been peppered by a scandal of illegal wiretapping, conspiracy and blackmail, unleashed after the use of a polygraph in Casa de Nariño to investigate the nanny of both officials for the theft of several thousand dollars at home from Sarabia.
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After the theft of a briefcase with thousands of dollars in Laura Sarabia’s apartment, “no more than 7,000,” according to this official considered Petro’s right-hand man, her nanny ended up being interrogated with a polygraph at Casa de Nariño, the presidential headquarters. Then, the babysitter’s telephone conversations were intercepted using a false police report that linked her to drug traffickers from the Clan del Golfo, according to the prosecutor’s office.
This scandal is a new particularly thorny setback for the left in power, calling itself the “government of change”, as there are complaints of mistreatment of a nanny and resorting to old political practices such as the so-called “wiretapping” or illegal wiretapping. Petro accumulates setbacks that have taken their toll. According to an Invamer poll revealed this Friday, his management approval went from 50% in November to 34% in May.
“While the investigation is being carried out, my dear and esteemed official (Sarabia) and the Venezuelan ambassador (Benedetti) withdraw from the government so that from the power that these charges imply, they cannot even have the distrust that they are going to alter the investigative processes,” Petro said.
Benedetti, a powerful politician who supported Petro in the campaign, introduced the president to Laura Sarabia. Benedetti, who was serving as ambassador to Venezuela, and the former chief of staff shared the same babysitter. Now both are accused of conspiracy. Benedetti made his “resignation” official in a bulletin and thanked for having been part of the reestablishment of relations between Colombia and Venezuela, broken since 2019.
Illegal wiretaps have marked the polarized history of Colombia in the midst of the prolonged armed conflict and Petro, along with some of his leftist ministers, were their victims.
“Here there can be no stain or even doubt that this government is going to repeat the dirt that others did,” said the president. Before taking office, the president and the defense minister were recognized as victims of the so-called “shocks” of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), dissolved in 2011.
The DAS, which depended on the presidency, found itself involved under the right-wing government of Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) in a scandal involving illegal wiretapping of Supreme Court magistrates, opponents, and journalists.
The babysitter
Marelbys Meza was first a babysitter for Benedetti’s children until June 2022, when she was fired on suspicion of stealing thousands of dollars after a polygraph test that detected lies in her explanation. Sarabia hired her in August 2022, after consulting with Benedetti, according to the former diplomat himself.
On January 30, the nanny underwent a second polygraph test on suspicion of another robbery, this time at Sarabia’s house, which according to the former chief of staff corresponded to $7,000.
Meza told local media that she was taken to a basement attached to the presidential Casa de Nariño where for four hours she felt “kidnapped, stunned, drowned.”
His interview set social networks on fire and was the tip of the iceberg of a scandal that seemed domestic, but ended up muddying the government. The phones of the nanny and a maid from Sarabia were intercepted “with the use of a false report”, on suspicion of being two allies of the Clan del Golfo, the largest drug gang in the country, according to the prosecutor’s office.
President and Prosecutor, confrontation
The president asked the attorney general, Francisco Barbosa, to use the same “urgency” that he has in cases against his government to investigate drug traffickers, when the relationship between the two is increasingly broken.
“Petro and Barbosa have had recent public disputes after the head of state said that the prosecutor was his subordinate, which he rejected,” says RFI Colombia correspondent Paula Carrillo. “Prosecutor Barbosa has strongly criticized Petro’s so-called ‘total peace’ policy. Barbosa, close to former right-wing president Iván Duque, was elected during the last presidential term and is one of the few officials proposed by his predecessor They are still active.”
