09:12 PM
After the conviction of the former mayor of Bucaramanga, Rodolfo Hernández, Due to irregularities in the awarding of a garbage collection contract to the Vitalogic RSU company, the former presidential candidate said he will appeal the first instance ruling. Hernández, 78, posted a video on his YouTube account in which he defended his innocence and harshly criticized the sentence.
ANDIn context: Rodolfo Hernández is sentenced to more than 5 years for the Vitalogic case
“They condemn me not for being a thief, nor for having stolen even a peso, they just condemn me because I allegedly violated the right to contract, to the line that every ruler has to follow of not having preferences in the awarding of contracts,” said the politician in the middle of his 13-minute response.
The sentence of more than 5 years in prison was granted by a tenth criminal judge of the Bucaramanga circuit, who determined that the former presidential candidate also committed the crime of undue interest in the execution of a contract as an author, That is, there was a conflict of interest on the part of the politician in the bidding process for a $340 million contract for a solid waste disposal technology project.
“What interest could I, Rodolfo Hernández, have when I was mayor, when I had more than $5 billion, including the decentralized institutes, in favoring a person with a contract of $340 million, and that person had never seen him in his life?” ?”, he asked himself.
The Prosecutor’s Office argued that the terms and conditions of the contract were manipulated to benefit Vitalogic RSUa case in which Hernández has always claimed his innocence.
“I have nothing to blush about, nor do I have anything to hide from anything. While I was mayor, everything I received in the mayor’s office from salaries, I gave to the best 50 primary and secondary students who were in public schools,” he assured.
Rrelated: “The cancer metastasized to the liver”, the harsh confession of Rodolfo Hernández
According to Hernández, in addition to the colon cancer that he was diagnosed with, he stated that he suffers from another cancer: that of corruption.
In addition, he criticized the judicial decision and revealed that he will appeal the first instance ruling. “They think of us as useful idiots, they think of me as a scapegoat; “They had to show a person, blame him for what he has not done, to justify that justice acts,” he asserted.
The judicial decision, in addition to house arrest, disqualifies him from holding public office for 80 months. It should be noted that the former president had already been politically disqualified for 12 years by the Attorney General’s Office at the end of 2023.
“I feel sorry for the fate of Rodolfo, my rival in the second presidential round. I respect justice and the sectarianism of those who, because they did not want a progressive project in the government, decided to support it, seems lower than Rodolfo. “This was the hatred of change, that they wanted the nation on the precipice,” said President Gustavo Petro.
