A babysitter is subjected to a polygraph near the Presidential Palace after being accused of stealing from the house of a prestigious official, who, in turn, ends up being accused of abuse of power. Faced with the possibility that the employee denounces the media, the ambassador takes her to Venezuela. What might seem like the plot of a series of intrigues is actually one of the worst headaches for President Gustavo Petro today.
The official is nothing more and nothing less than Laura Sarabia, the presidential chief of staff who, even at just 29 years old, has been classified as the right hand of the Colombian president and “the most powerful woman” in the government. The ambassador is Armando Benedetti, Colombian representative in Venezuelaformer boss of Sarabia and who has faced several scandals during his political life.
The first episode came to light when the magazine Week revealed, over the weekend, an interview in which Marelbys Meza, caretaker of the son of Petro’s chief of staff, said she felt pressured when she was subjected to a polygraph in a basement, in front of the Casa de Nariño, headquarters of the Colombian Presidency, after the disappearance of a briefcase with $7,000 dollars that, according to her, she did not steal.
When I was in the basement, I felt kidnapped, dazed, drowning, waiting for the polygraph to be done.”
“They did a polygraph on me and they told me: ‘You can make fun of that device, but you can’t make fun of us. She’s not going home tonight, she’s going to jail here, and we’re going to raid all her brothers and you,’” Meza said, according to the magazine, which detailed that the caretaker was in the basement for almost five hours. last Monday, January 30, where she was questioned by some agents.
According to the babysitter, Sarabia warned her that she should undergo this test. “I didn’t want to go there, but it was my turn. If I didn’t go, they would accuse me of having stolen that money. If I went, then I would tell them: I clarify that I am innocent. I really didn’t want to go, but they went to pick me up at my house. I had to go or go,” said the former caretaker.
“When I was in the basement, I felt kidnapped, dazed, drowned, waiting for them to take the polygraph,” added Meza, who even said that the agents who investigated her treated her as a “thief.”
President Petro wrote on his Twitter account that “polygraph tests have been done for years for the security of the presidency.” Likewise, Defense Minister Iván Velásquez assured the media that the former worker authorized the test to be carried out on her.
For its part, the Headquarters for Presidential Protection rejected on Saturday, through a statement, the “versions on alleged abuse of power, misuse of public resources and mistreatment of defenseless people”, and clarified that the procedures “have all the authorizations required by law” and that there are audio and video that are available to the authorities.
It got out of hand…
During the second episode, after the complaint, the Attorney General’s Office announced that it had opened an investigation into the case to determine whether or not there is a crime in these events and reported that Laura Sarabia will be called to testify after the controversy, in the coming days.
Likewise, he carried out an inspection at the Casa de Nariño, previously announced on Monday, by Petro himself, through his Twitter account, as he usually does: “As it happened in Peru, against the elected president Pedro Castillo, the Presidency will be raided by the Prosecutor’s Office. We have nothing to hide: Welcome”.
However, on Tuesday, the institution confirmed that it was a “judicial inspection” and not a “search”, and that the objective was to seek “information and carry out verification work to establish the existence of security cameras for the I enter the Galán building, where the polygraph room is apparently located.” The Prosecutor’s Office also said it was investigating the theft of money as such.
Apparently the attorney general, Francisco Barbosa, would not have liked the fact that the polygraph is used by the Presidency. “The only entity in Colombia that investigates acts constituting a crime in accordance with the Political Constitution is the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, no civilian conducts investigations outside,” the official told Snail Radio.
Notably Petro and Barbosa have starred in several clashes. The most recent, when the president demanded information from the Prosecutor’s Office about an alleged collaboration of a prosecutor with the Clan del Golfo and told him that he was his “boss”, a fact that Barbosa rejected, pointing out that Petro behaved like a “dictator”. .
The defense of Sarabia
The president’s right-hand man assured that he was a victim of theft and that he reported the incident to the authorities. Saturday, on his Twitter accountstated that together with his family he was “victim of a robbery. The Prosecutor’s Office is investigating whoever gave the version to Semana as responsible. The presidential protection headquarters and the Sijin acted by applying the protocols within the framework of the law.”
Regarding the money, he stated that they correspond to “payments of official travel expenses made during August 2022 and January 2023 and that are delivered to us in that foreign currency.”
Despite the fact that Sarabia has assured that the procedure was legal and that the established protocols were respected, the story has grown like a snowball, since now he will have to face a disciplinary process in the Attorney General’s Office.
On Wednesday, the Colombian Attorney General’s Office opened a preliminary inquiry to investigate the facts. According to attorney Margarita Cabello, the investigation, in addition to Sarabia: “it is necessary to carry out a preliminary investigation in order to identify other servers who could have participated in the events.”
Benedetti, the guest star
In the third episode of the series, a new character was added: Armando Benedetti, current ambassador of Colombia. in Venezuela, a political ally of Petro and former head of Sarabia, since the official began her career as a member of the Legislative Work Unit of the then senator and was one of his trusted officials.
According to reported the journalist Daniel Coronell, in the W Radius, sources close to Sarabia accuse Benedetti of blackmailing her. In addition, she points out that Meza also worked for the ambassador, who also subjected her to a polygraph on suspicion of theft and, even, with a negative result for which she was fired from it.
Coronell also says that the nanny “was taken from Colombia to Venezuela on a charter flight” paid for by Benedetti and that the day she returned to Colombia she was interviewed by the magazine Week.
Daniel Coronell also revealed that, on Friday, before Meza’s interview was published, the ambassador met with the director, Vicky Dávila, and later sent a message to Sarabia stating: “I just spoke with Vicky (sic) after from what you told me about Mari (…) You were right. It is possible that this circumstance (sic) can be avoided… I hope you understand the meaning of this message!
Given the facts, the ambassador he expandedvia Twitter, and assured that Sarabia “arrived on April 17 at 1 pm to tell me that she was worried because Marelbys was in contact with various journalists, and she asked me to help her.”
“From there comes the idea that she go with me to Venezuela. It’s the other way around: @laurisarabia She is looking for me and what I do is hire her ”, he adds. “At that time, the problem for @laurisarabia is that the amount of money or the flow of cash that was in her house was revealed.”
He even revealed that Sarabia was the one who informed him that Marelbys spoke with Vicky “and he tells me that he is going to leave in the week. Because I knew? Does she shoot? “Questioned Benedetti, who added that, by having contact with the journalist, he only tried to help the chief of staff, who according to the ambassador, was the one who” asked permission to hire her “.
Until now, official sources have reported that President Gustavo Petro summoned his ambassador to a private meeting at the Catam military airport on Wednesday to clarify the facts. So, it only remains to wait how many more episodes will be added to this plot…
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and activate notifications, or follow us on social networks: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
