“They condemn me not for being a thief or for having stolen a peso, They simply condemn me because I allegedly violated the right to contract.”said the former mayor of Bucaramanga, Rodolfo Hernández, after a judge sentenced him to 64 months of house arrest this June 13.
According to justice, While Hernández was mayor, he flouted contracting regulations to hand-pick an agreement that favored his son. His sentence is home due to his state of health and because he does not represent a danger to society.
Whoever was President Gustavo Petro’s main contender in the 2022 elections must now pay a fine of 66.66 minimum wages, which is a little more than $86 million, and will remain disqualified from holding public office for eighty months.
In a video of more than 13 minutes, Hernández addressed the Colombians, pointing out that he was convicted of raping “the line that every ruler must follow of not having preferences in the awarding of contracts.”
Hernández made it clear that he will appeal this first instance ruling and stressed that he will remain free “until he is defeated in court.” “They want to make me a scapegoat with a clearly unjust sentence. They never proved that alleged meeting and the witnesses contradicted each other,” he stated.
“They are savored every time they fail against me, they have filed 400 lawsuits against me and I have won 90% of them, the rest I continue to fight. Those of the Attorney General’s Office have been overthrown by the Council of State,” the former mayor wrote on his X account (formerly Twitter).
In his publications he not only stated that he wants to prove his “innocence,” but also sent a blunt message to the director of Social Prosperity, Gustavo Bolívar.. “I will have to see the narconovela writer whose mother did not vote for him and who today celebrates this ruling, silent when he wins in the judicial courts, just as he remains silent while he governs with bandits.”
What does the ruling say?
The ruling against Hernández, read this Thursday, June 13 by the judge, It consists of forty pages in which the court expresses the reasons why it was demonstrated, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Rodolfo Hernández was guilty of what was accused by the Prosecutor’s Office.
The thesis of the investigating entity is that in 2016 the then president intervened so that a consulting contract for new technologies in the El Carrasco landfill, signed by the Bucaramanga Cleaning Company, was delivered to Vitalogic RSU.
Before the signing, Hernández participated in at least two meetings in which “The need to find a person to prepare the specifications that would redirect the contracting was announced with Vitalogic technology, which they called ‘the skull’.”
Luis Andelfo Trujillo and Carlos Gutiérrez, cited as witnesses throughout the process, they were intermediaries in diverting the hiring process. They communicated with Luis Carlos Hernández, who transmitted the information to his father, Rodolfo Hernández.
The final purpose of benefiting Vitalogic was, precisely, to benefit Luis Carlos Hernández, whom Trujillo “appointed to mediate between them and his father to achieve the new technology for the disposal of solid waste.”
*With information from Colpresa.
