BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s Legal professional Common’s Workplace stated Monday it should file corruption fees in opposition to the president of nationwide oil firm Ecopetrol that hearken again to his days as a marketing campaign supervisor for President Gustavo Petro.
Ecopetrol President Ricardo Roa managed the funds of Petro’s 2022 presidential marketing campaign and prosecutors say they’ve sufficient proof to show he helped the marketing campaign to illegally exceed spending limits.
Roa, an engineer who has served as Ecopetrol’s CEO since April 2023, may also be prosecuted for affect peddling, the Legal professional Common’s workplace stated Monday.
Prosecutors say Roa steered Ecopetrol contracts towards an organization owned by a enterprise proprietor who bought him an opulent house in Bogota at a steep low cost. Roa has denied the corruption fees, in addition to accusations that the president’s marketing campaign exceeded spending limits.
In November, Colombia’s Nationwide Electoral Council imposed a fantastic on Roa and two different marketing campaign directors for allegedly exceeding spending limits and funding the marketing campaign with cash from unlawful sources.
Petro’s presidential marketing campaign got here underneath hearth in 2023, when a lawyer representing a authorities contractor with hyperlinks to a paramilitary group stated his shopper had donated hundreds of {dollars} to the political marketing campaign.
The president’s son, Nicolas Petro, who’s underneath investigation for cash laundering, informed prosecutors in 2023 that funds from a former drug trafficker had been utilized in his father’s marketing campaign.
Petro has denied the costs in opposition to his marketing campaign, and described them as an effort to undermine his authorities.
Colombia is holding congressional and presidential elections later this 12 months. The nation’s structure bars presidents from in search of reelection.
Petro has requested voters to again candidates that assist his financial reforms, and to vote for members of congress that assist a rewrite of the nation’s structure.
