The Prosecutor’s Office does not give his arm to twist. The accusing body announced on Tuesday that it has filed a formal accusation against presidential candidate Daniel Quintero and nine other people who worked with him as mayor of Medellín (2021-2024). It accuses them and three individuals of the crimes of peculation for appropriation, prevaricate for action and undue interest in the conclusion of contracts, for allegedly benefiting, illegally, the owners of a lot called living waters, which the district sought to acquire. The signaling is that the price of the land of 147,000 square meters, which would have jumped from 2.7 billion pesos to 48,000 million pesos (from about 680,000 dollars to almost 12 million).
“It will be our turn to demonstrate, with evidence, how they put the hand to justice to get us out of the presidency,” Quintero replied. The Antioqueño aspires to become the sole candidate of the left -wing coalition led by Gustavo Petro, through a planned consultation for the end of October. For months the politician alleges that behind the judicial process is Federico Gutierrez, right -wing politician who was mayor before and after Quintero, and who raised the case to the Prosecutor’s Office. “Fico hired the prosecutor who was carrying the case and ended up chasing me instead of him,” said Quintero two weeks ago.
The prosecutor of the case, Yiri Milena, had charged the former mayor in March, and in the months that have passed more evidence. The news comes at the worst time for Quintero, who is in an active campaign to win the consultation, with very colorful propaganda acts: he has raised the Palestine flag in business events or that of Colombia on Santa Rosa del Amazonas Island creating a conflict with Peru. In addition, alliances with local politicians in several regions have been weaving. In the most recent Sorbe Survey that consultation, of last August, is one of the pointers among a dozen candidates. Although the former mayor produces rejection in part of the bases of the left, since he is a recent militant in it, President Gustavo Petro has asked him to be included in the fan.
The Prosecutor’s Office alleges that Quintero and several members of its cabinet irregularly modified the Territorial Planning Plan (POT), the scheme that determines the use of the land of the city, in the area where the Lot of Living Water is. It is an environmentally protected area that near Vía Las Palmas, which connects the urban center of the second city of Colombia with its main airport. More specifically, he points out that the defendants modified the categorization of the lot so that it could be built in it, as part of an area that, by decree, Quintero called “Software Valley”. Both this project and the change in the destination of the property increased considerably the batch appraisal. The previous Mayor’s Office, from Gutiérrez, had negotiated it with the owners at a lower price: these should be given to the city, in exchange for a balance to pay other debts to the district worth 2,711 million pesos.
The change of guard in the Mayor’s Office stopped that agreement, and Quintero began his project. However, later a court froze the purchase that the mayor of Quintero was going to make for 40,500 million pesos. Since then the two former mayors were marked by corruption, and the Prosecutor’s Office looked at Quintero.
The call for trial is just the first step of a decision that may take months and that, if against Quintero, would immediately remove it from the ring. Meanwhile, the former mayor can continue in campaign. The question is whether it will make it more difficult to fly an anti -corruption flag or if it will promote a speech as a victim of the system.
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