Former Colombian Senator Involved in Odebrecht Sentenced to 13 Years in Prison

Bogotá, 15 Mar The Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia sentenced former senator of the Radical Change party Antonio Guerra de la Espriella to 13 years, 8 months and one day in prison for his involvement and influence trafficking in the corruption scandal of Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in the country. “The Chamber ordered to sentence him to 164 months and one day in prison”, the statement issued by the Court on Tuesday adds fines of more than 1.1 billion pesos (308,500 dollars) and the inability to perform public functions for more than 13 years. According to the Supreme Court's ruling, Guerra de la Espriella, as a senator, at the end of 2012 “he would have been part of the criminal enterprise led by the managers” of Odebrecht and several lobbyists “in order to commit undetermined crimes”. Thus, he exercised “undue influence” on the then Minister of Finance, Mauricio Cárdenas, to sign a concessions contract to Odebrecht that materialized in December of that year. The lobbyists (Federico Gaviria, Otto Bula Bula and Bernardo Miguel Elías) took 4 billion pesos (more than one million dollars) and Guerra got 200 million ($52,500) “for having achieved the proposed task for the criminal organization”. The former senator, according to the Supreme Court ruling, also unduly influenced the then president of the National Development Finance, Clemente Luis del Valle, to give the green light to the Portuguese company Afa Vías, who was interested in acquiring shares in Odebrecht. The former parliamentarian also had an impact on the award of a contract to the Navelena consortium, of which the Brazilian consortium was the main shareholder with 87 per cent, with which it was expected to recover navigability in a stretch of the Magdalena River, the country's main one in more than 13 years. The former Senator of Cambio Radical, who between 2012 and 2017 obtained an “unjustified capital increase” of almost 600 million pesos (more than $150,000), was convicted of, among other crimes, a concert to commit an aggravated crime, trafficking in public servant influence and illicit enrichment of public servant and was acquitted of bribery own. In addition, the Court ruled that he must remain in prison, where he is after surrendering in March 2019, when his arrest was ordered, without being replaced by house imprisonment or conditional suspension of sentence. According to data released by the United States Department of Justice on December 21, 2016, Odebrecht paid bribes in Colombia worth $11 million as part of the million-dollar corruption network set up in Latin America and Africa. However, the Colombian Public Prosecutor's Office estimates the amount of the construction company's bribes in the country at 84 billion pesos (about 27.1 million dollars). On November 7, 2017, the Attorney General's Office opened a formal investigation against eight congressmen, including Guerra de la Espriella, over the Odebrecht corruption scandals. A week later, the country's prosecutor's office asked the Court to investigate the accused parliamentarian along with seven other members of Congress for favoring the construction company. Former Senator Otto Bula, who received $4.6 million to mediate contracts for the Brazilian company in Colombia, is being arrested for the Odebrecht case.