Luz Adriana Camargo Garzon will lead the investigation on President Petro and his son after weeks of delay within the appointment course of.
Colombia's Supreme Court docket of Justice has chosen Luz Adriana Camargo Garzon because the nation's new lawyer common amid ongoing turmoil for the federal government of President Gustavo Petro.
Camargo was a former decide who labored for the lawyer common's workplace for 12 years, starting within the Nineteen Nineties. He was additionally a prosecutor assigned to the Supreme Court docket of Justice, the place he investigated ties between lawmakers and the right-wing paramilitary teams.
She is ready to guide a number of delicate investigations, together with an investigation into allegations of unlawful financing in Petro's 2022 presidential marketing campaign.
The lawyer common's workplace can also be within the midst of prosecuting Petro's eldest son, Nicolas, a former provincial lawmaker, for alleged corruption and cash laundering, as a part of an investigation that started greater than a 12 months in the past .
“With 18 votes, Luz Adriana Camargo Garzon was elected the nation's new lawyer common,” Gerson Chaverra, the president of the Supreme Court docket of Justice, advised reporters on Tuesday. A complete of 23 judges had been eligible to vote.
The earlier lawyer common – Francisco Barbosa, a outstanding critic of Petro – noticed his four-year time period finish in February. Camargo's appointment comes amid weeks of political rigidity and protests over delays in appointing an official to the function.
In January, Petro offered three candidates to the Supreme Court docket to succeed Barbosa, having promised to fill the upcoming emptiness with a lady. However the voting course of stalled within the following weeks.
Final month, tons of of pro-Petro protesters surrounded the Supreme Court docket to reveal towards the slowdown.
The UN and the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights demanded that Barbosa's substitute be named rapidly, with none extra stress on the courtroom.
On Tuesday, earlier than Camargo was voted out, there was one other shakeup within the course of: Amelia Perez, lengthy thought-about the frontrunner to fill the function, introduced she would withdraw her candidacy.
Perez's prospects have soured in latest days after her husband's social media posts turned the topic of scandal.
Based on publications akin to Semana journal, Perez's husband, Gregorio Oviedo, had used his on-line platforms to insult the Supreme Court docket and different judges, in addition to undermine the investigation into Petro's son.
Petro himself has criticized the lawyer common's workplace for its probes into his marketing campaign, and has denied any wrongdoing. The primary left-wing president in Colombia's fashionable historical past, Petro additionally confronted sturdy opposition from right-wing lawmakers.
Earlier than his appointment on Tuesday, Camargo labored for the Worldwide Fee towards Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) between 2014 and 2017, the place he directed the investigation crew. Whereas in that function, he was a colleague of present Protection Minister Ivan Velasquez.
Carmago additionally consulted with the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights within the case of three Ecuadorian journalists kidnapped and killed by a Colombian armed group.
As Colombia's new lawyer common, Carmago will oversee a case that claims the youthful Petro obtained cash from accused drug traffickers in change for favorable remedy in his father's “Whole Peace” plan — a framework for ending the armed battle that has gripped Colombia for practically 60 years. years
Carmago additionally dealt with the long-running case towards former right-wing president Alvaro Uribe for witness tampering and fraud, allegedly a part of a scheme to discredit accusations that he had ties to paramilitary teams.
Uribe has denied the fees towards him.
