BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s attorney general’s office said on Friday it will begin an investigation into accusations that President Gustavo Petro’s oldest son took money from drug traffickers in exchange for including them in his father’s peace efforts.
Nicolas Petro, a lawmaker in Atlantico province, has said he has had nothing to do with the president’s efforts to make peace or surrender deals with rebels and criminal gangs, and called the accusations “unfounded and harmful”.
Petro said in a statement on Thursday he hopes his brother Juan Fernando Petro, who has denied similar rumors, and Nicolas will both have a chance to prove their innocence.
The president had called for the attorney general’s office to investigate and Nicolas Petro welcomed an investigation on his Twitter account late on Thursday.
A team of its investigators will meet with the woman who made the accusations against Nicolas in Barranquilla, the attorney general’s office said in a statement, and will asses whether she requires any protection.
The woman, Nicolas Petro’s ex-partner, had told local media that two people accused of involvement with drug trafficking had given Nicolas money for his father’s campaign, among other alleged acts of corruption.
An investigation into the accusations against Petro’s brother began in January, prosecutors added.
Petro’s government is working on a law which would allow criminal gangs, including drug traffickers, to surrender and testify about their activities in exchange for legal benefits like reduced sentences.
That effort is one prong of Petro’s pledge to bring ‘total peace’ to Colombia, whose six-decade internal armed conflict has killed at least 450,000 people.
(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by David Gregorio)
