(Bogota) Prosecution investigators inspected the presidential palace in Bogota, Colombia on Tuesday after allegations of abuse were directed against the president’s powerful chief of staff Gustavo Petro, national media reported.
Navy blue vests and caps, seven prosecutors entered the Casa Narino (presidency) in the afternoon to carry out their investigations, according to images broadcast by these media.
They were to visit a room in an annex of the presidency where a domestic employee of the director of the presidential cabinet Laura Sarabia was allegedly subjected to a lie detector.
During this mission of “gathering information”, the officials also had to check surveillance cameras, the protocol for access to the building as well as the list of people assigned to the transport and security of the chief of staff, indicates a statement from the Attorney General.
Prior to the visit, President Petro tweeted ironically, welcoming the prosecutors and claiming to have “nothing to hide”.
The case broke this weekend, with the publication by the conservative weekly week from an interview with the ex-nanny employed by Mme Sarabia.
Marelbys Meza accuses her former employer of having subjected her to a muscular interrogation, with a lie detector, in the precincts of the presidency, after the theft from her boss’ home of a suitcase containing nearly 7,000 dollars.
Mme Meza said she spent four hours held in a “basement” of a presidential annex, interrogated and intimidated by officials. “I felt imprisoned, sequestered, cornered, overwhelmed by everything that was said to me there,” she said.
This denunciation sparked the ire of the presidential camp, Mr. Petro castigating, still on Twitter, “a day full of lies”.
Following these revelations, Attorney General Francisco Barbosa, at loggerheads for months with President Petro, announced the opening of a preliminary investigation.
For the moment, no prosecution has been initiated, but Mr.me Meza filed a complaint and was granted protective measures by the prosecution.
“The only entity empowered to investigate criminal acts in Colombia is the Attorney General’s office,” prosecutor Barbosa said at the microphone of national radio, criticizing the use of the lie detector by agents of the presidency.
At 28, Laura Sarabia is regularly called the president’s right-hand man and the most powerful woman in government.
Mme Sarabia assures that her son’s ex-nurse had agreed to undergo the process. “I never forced her, I never pressured her, I never used my power,” she said.
The 7000 dollars flew away, according to Mme Sarabia, correspond “to the payment of official travel expenses incurred between August 2022 and January 2023”.
The lie detector, also called polygraph, is still used in some countries, including the United States, Canada, India and Japan. Its reliability is regularly questioned, but it continues to be used by certain intelligence services in particular.