For security reasons, the number of escorts for the presidential family is not revealed, so it is not known if the more than 30 who left are all or just some of the team of agents that protects those closest to the president.
This week it became known that Verónica Alcocer, first lady, and Laura Sarabia, director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency -Dapre, had requested changes in their security scheme.
From the National Protection Unit -UNP, directed by Augusto Rodríguez, it was reported that these were specific changes, but according to an investigation by El Colombiano, it was known that not only was it a sweep of more than 30 bodyguards, but that it would be from another chapter of the so-called “cold war” in the Casa de Nariño between the two rings closest to President Gustavo Petro: on one side Sarabia and Alcocer, and on the other the ex-M19.
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For security reasons, the number of bodyguards for the presidential family has not been revealed, so it is not known whether the more than 30 who left are all or just some of the team of agents that protects those closest to the president. Most of them were fired and only a handful remain in the entity because they have union immunity.
Several of the dismissed bodyguards confirmed that They did not move them, but they threw them outand some are so upset that they have filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, although they prefer not to reveal their identities for fear of reprisals.
Although It is normal for periodic changes to occur in protection schemes for security and counterintelligence work, it is not usual for complaints to be filed with the Attorney General’s Office for alleged overstepping of functions. against three public servants of the Police in charge of presidential security, among them Colonel Carlos Alberto Feria.
Asked about the issue, the director of the UNP, Augusto Rodríguez, explained that the bodyguards are supplied by UT companies and that, when they are rotated, they return to these companies, which assign them to other schemes according to UNP requests.
However, the reality seems to be different, since the bodyguards were permanently fired and some have been left unemployed without being able to easily find work due to the suspicion generated by their abrupt separation.
They made money to pay tolls
In addition to the alleged excess of functions, the annoyance of the bodyguards is also due to the fact that they had to create a collective fund, a kind of cow, to cover daily expenses such as paying tolls and mechanical services or washing vans that they did not owe. run on their own, but they ended up paying to provide a better service. According to them, that money was never returned to them.
El Colombiano contacted Colonel Carlos Alberto Feria through the Presidency. The response from the Presidency indicates that the changes in the security scheme “They are confidential and are carried out under the authority of the Head of Presidential Protection. These decisions are intended to safeguard the life, physical integrity, personal freedom, individual security and image of the presidential family.”
Beyond the allegations of alleged overstepping of functions, the termination of the bodyguards’ contracts shows that there was a specific decision to remove them from the Palace and, later, from the UNP.
This decision comes amidst the alerts for an alleged “friendly fire” denounced by Alcocer, although government officials, such as Carlos Ramón González, head of the National Intelligence Directorate -DNI, and Augusto Rodríguez, director of the UNP, have categorically denied this situation.
The tension increases with accusations of alleged attacks on judges, opponents and journalists by the DNI, although there is no concrete evidence beyond the complaint by the magistrate of the Constitutional Court, Jorge Enrique Ibáñez, about the illegal interception of his phone.
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In the last hours, after a meeting between Carlos Ramón González and Gerson Chaverra, president of the Supreme Court of Justice, the departure of Colonel Edwin Chavarro, director of Counterintelligence of the DNI, was confirmed. The Government clarified that Chavarro’s change is not related to the complaints of surveillance, denying any connection with illegal interceptions.
With information from Colpresa.
