Trial Begins Against two Former Ministers of Gustavo Petro over Corruption in the UNGRD

Trial begins in Colombia in one of the cases that could most affect the government of President Gustavo Petro, as his former Interior Minister Luis Fernando Velasco and former Finance Minister Ricardo Bonilla appear as defendants, the first in custody and the second free due to expiration of procedural deadlines for remaining deprived of liberty. Both ministers must respond to accusations that involve them in the worst corruption scandal of the Petro administration: that of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD).

The body in charge of conducting the process is the Special First Instance Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, which set as the date and time for the beginning of the case 8:15 in the morning on Wednesday April 29. The two former ministers are also, so far, the two highest former government officials of Petro involved in the case, for which the former presidential adviser for the regions Sandra Ortiz and the former director of the UNGRD Olmedo Lopez and the former deputy director Sneyder Pinilla are also in prison.

Former ministers would have created a “criminal enterprise”

Another implicated former official, very close to President Petro, is Carlos Ramon Gonzalez, former director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency (Dapre) and of the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI), now a fugitive in Nicaragua.

Like a whirlpool, the scandal also has the former president of the Senate Ivan Name and the former president of the Chamber of Representatives Andres Calle in prison. Former ministers Velasco and Bonilla are accused of having allegedly given instructions for UNGRD contracts to be used in order to buy the conscience of congress members in favor of the government’s reforms and initiatives. Precisely for that reason, congress members Wadith Manzur (Conservative Party) and Karen Manrique (Peace Seats) are also in prison.

The indictment against Bonilla and Velasco detailed that both would have been coordinated to create a “criminal enterprise” that had “a vocation of permanence and durability, insofar as it extended during the time in which Velasco and Bonilla served as cabinet ministers, that is, between May 2023 and February 2024, a period during which they directed in favor of parliamentarians of the First Committee of the Senate, and the Third and Fourth Committees of the Chamber.”

In the trial, the Attorney General’s Office expects to obtain a conviction for the two former ministers. In the first session of the trial this Wednesday, the Supreme Court’s First Instance Chamber recognized Invias, UNGRD and the Comptroller’s Office as victims. Thus, justice admits that those entities would have suffered real and concrete harm as a consequence of the conduct allegedly committed by former ministers Velasco and Bonilla.

Alejandro Carranza, Bonilla’s lawyer, and Velasco’s defense opposed the claims of Invias, UNGRD and the Comptroller’s Office to be recognized as victims in this case. But the First Instance Chamber considered that there are sufficient arguments to grant them that status at this procedural stage.

In parallel, the scandal continues to grow and threatens to involve more people. This same Wednesday, the radio station Caracol Radio reported that there are more contracts that have not yet been mentioned, for an amount exceeding one trillion pesos (US$ 276 billion), signed to protect rivers, build bridges, and contain floods.

According to that media outlet, these are national emergency resources that were contracted under a scheme “always the same, always identical, without a single exception,” and that these are operations different from the water tanker contracts, the yellow machinery contracts, or the community kitchen contracts that have been previously and widely reported. “These are mostly contracts that no one has talked about.”