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Iván Velásquez Gómez, famous for his lengthy historical past of preventing corruption in Colombia and Guatemala, would be the Minister of Protection of the Authorities of Gustavo Petro, who will take workplace on August 7.
Iván Velásquez Gomez has the problem of eradicating the Nationwide Police from the Ministry of Protection, as proposed by the president-elect, in order that it turns into a civilian physique and kinds a part of the Ministry of Justice or the Inside.
Velásquez, born in Medellín in 1955 and a lawyer from the College of Antioquia, has a protracted historical past within the Colombian judicial system and as a commissioner of the Worldwide Fee Towards Impunity in Guatemala.
The investigations in opposition to Pablo Escobar in Medellín
He grew to become identified within the Nineteen Nineties as a prosecutor in Antioquía, in northwestern Colombia, an space that was the epicenter of the extreme violence of drug trafficker Pablo Escobar and his felony group, the Medellín cartel. In that place, he led investigations in opposition to Escobar and managed to gather proof that triggered the most important safety disaster in Colombia in the course of the presidency of César Gaviria, by exhibiting that the jail the place the well-known capo was confined was a spot filled with luxurious, violence, intercourse and corruption.
After Escobar’s escape from La Catedral jail in 1992, Velásquez had the duty of making an attempt to handle the drug trafficker’s handover by means of a gathering with the capo’s spouse. The assembly unleashed threats and persecution in opposition to him.
Later, in 1997, as regional director of the Medellín Prosecutor’s Workplace, he started a frontal struggle in opposition to the so-called Colombian self-defense teams, felony paramilitary teams devoted to persecuting guerrilla teams. Velásquez uncovered the hyperlink between the self-defense teams and numerous political figures. This investigation solely elevated the threats and even put a worth on his head.
Convictions for paramilitarism / Who’s Iván Velásquez Gomez
Nevertheless it was not till 2007, when he was working as an assistant Justice of the Peace of the Prison Chamber of the Supreme Court docket of Colombia, that the identify of Iván Velásquez crammed the entrance pages of Colombian newspapers. The then president Álvaro Uribe Vélez named him because the investigator of the well-known “parapolitics” case, by which Uribe was accused of getting paramilitary ties. President Uribe denied these accusations and stated that Velásquez was fabricating proof in opposition to him, information that have been by no means confirmed. The president was by no means formally charged.
Gustavo Petro, immediately the president-elect, was one of many congressmen who gave the difficulty of parapolitics probably the most visibility within the first decade of the century and since then he has identified Velásquez ..
Velásquez remained on the forefront of the investigation and, collectively along with his group, achieved the conviction of greater than 50 Colombian congressmen for his or her relations with paramilitarism. A kind of arrested was Mario Uribe, cousin of now former President Uribe, who additionally denied the fees.
With this case Velásquez grew to become an uncomfortable determine for energy. Even months later, the Colombian authorities confirmed that, in the course of the Uribe presidency, Velásquez had been spied on by the previous Nationwide Intelligence Directorate of Colombia, DAS, for its acronym. A number of individuals went to jail for this crime.
Surrounded by threats and persecution, Velásquez resigned from his place in 2012.
Battle in opposition to corruption in Guatemala / Who’s Iván Velásquez Gomez
Velásquez left Colombia in 2013. At the moment it was thought that it might be the tip of his public profession, however shortly after he reappeared in Guatemala and with the approval of the UN, he was appointed commissioner of the Worldwide Fee in opposition to Impunity in Guatemala, CICIG . In simply two years on the head of the group, Velásquez dismantled the million-dollar customs fraud community that ended with the resignation and imprisonment of then-President Otto Pérez Molina and former Vice President Roxana Baldetti.
Former Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales opposed Velásquez’s work and in 2017 declared him persona non grata and known as for his quick expulsion.
Velásquez has additionally been important of the Alejandro Giammattei administration. In 2021 he stated that the president’s dedication to US Vice President Kamala Harris to struggle corruption “will not be a honest dedication” and that corrupt energy was prolonged within the authorities.
“The struggle in opposition to impunity and corruption can not take into account ideologies or political colours or affinities of any type,” says the Twitter biography of Velásquez, who can be in control of a key portfolio of the Gustavo Petro authorities.
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