Laura Sarabia returns to her position as President Petro’s right hand, when she was sworn in this Friday as director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic (Dapre), seven months after her resignation due to the case of the theft of a briefcase with money in his house that sparked the first major crisis for the president. EFE
Laura Sarabia returns to his right-hand position President of Colombia, Gustavo Petroupon being installed this Friday as director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic (Dapre), seven months after her resignation due to the case of the theft of a briefcase with money in her house that sparked the first major crisis for the president.
Sarabia, one of Petro’s most trusted people, thus returns to the Casa de Nariño (presidential headquarters) in a position of even more power than the one she had when she was chief of staff – a figure that no longer exists. exists – and served as a liaison between the president and the ministers and communicated the lines of action to them.
He will replace Carlos Ramón González in this position, who in turn was also installed this Friday as head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI).
It is not the official return of Sarabia Torres to the Government, since she had already sworn in in September as the director of the Department for Social Prosperity (DPS), an entity with ministerial rank and that manages a juicy budget.
“Several of us already know each other and have worked on the Government in other functions«Petro said at Sarabia’s swearing-in, without making direct mention of her and referring only to the other positions of other entities that have also been sworn in this Friday.
The Sarabia scandal
The figure of the senior presidential official began to be tarnished after Semana magazine published the complaint that Sarabia’s nanny, Marelbys Meza, was accused in January of last year of stealing a coin from the official’s house. briefcase in which there was supposedly 7,000 dollars.
After the alleged theft of money, the telephone numbers of the nanny and the other domestic employee were illegally intercepted by the Police using as a cover an investigation against the criminal gang of the Clan del Golfo in the department of Chocóin the west of the country.
In addition, Meza was taken to a unit of the Casa de Nariño, to be interrogated and subjected to polygraph tests without a court order.
That complaint weakened his position in the Government and on June 2 he presented his resignation almost simultaneously with that of Armando Benedetti, then ambassador to Venezuela and who was Sarabia’s boss when he was a senator and she was his advisor.
After the robbery became known, messages from Benedetti to Sarabia were leaked in which he treated her in a crude and derogatory manner and pressured her to get a higher position, threatening to reveal alleged illegal financing of Petro’s campaign, in other events that are also under investigation. EFE