A prosecutor from Bogotá began to ‘dust off’ processes that remained shelved in the desks of the prosecuting body, in which a current mayor and other former mayors of the Department of Magdalena are involved, allegedly for having had links with paramilitary groups that operated in the region.
One of the cases involves the current mayor of Aracataca Leiter Salgado, while others involve former mayors, among them, Efraín ‘Tony’ Ortega, who was in charge of the Zona Bananera municipality in the last period.
The processes are in charge of Prosecutor’s Office 242 of Bogotá, where prosecutor Oscar Rodríguez is now in charge.who came to replace Rodrigo Rocha Azuero, who left the institution due to his pension time served.
At the reopening of the investigations, Prosecutor Rodríguez began to call for a witness hearing the former paramilitary chief José Gregorio Mangones Lugo, who operated in the northern subregion of Magdalena as commander of the ‘William Rivas’ Front of the AUC, and who committed himself before the judicial body to reveal information that affects public officials who allegedly had a relationship with the paramilitary group.
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Mangones Lugo, was already giving testimony at the hearing that was held on April 15 at 9:00 in the morning in the aforementioned judicial office, which was ordered by the Eleventh Specialized Criminal Court, assigned to the OIT program in Bogotá, within the process filed with number 2023-00134, in which two former mayors of Puebloviejo are being investigated for the murder in Ciénaga of the San José school teacher, Heberto de Jesús Fihol Pacheco.
In this witness hearing, Mangones Lugo, criticized one of the former mayors of the municipality of Puebloviejo, who allegedly had a relationship with the paramilitaries who carried out the murder of the professor whom they “labeled” as a collaborator of the guerrilla.
Another of the files has to do with the alleged relationship that he would have had in the past with the paramilitaries of the ‘William Rivas’ Front of the Auc, the current mayor of Aracataca Leiter Salgado, within which the former paramilitary chief, José Gregorio Mangones Lugo, who has said that he has sufficient information on the matter, will also be called to testify.
The Prosecutor’s Office also revived an investigation in which the former mayor of Zona Bananera Efraín ‘Tony’ Ortega appears, who allegedly received support from the AUC when he was a candidate for the Council of that municipality and in which ‘Carlos Tijera’ will also be called to testify. .
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It was learned that the Prosecutor’s Office is also carrying out investigations to persuade other former members of the paramilitary group, who are willing to testify in all these processes. One of those possible witnesses is a collaborator of justice named Nehemías, who already testified in Justice and Peace, where he splashed Mayor Salgado and another individual named Eliseo, who, according to him, was the right-hand man of the deceased congressman ‘Chichio’ Saade.
