Bogotá, May 7 (EFE) .- The Colombian authorities arrested on Wednesday the former presidents of Senate Iván Name and the Andrés Calle representatives for their alleged participation in the corruption scandal of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD).
The Instruction Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice imposed “measure of intramural preventive detention” against the two congressmen, which “was already effective” this afternoon in two police operations.
The High Court detailed in a statement that also ordered the Board of Directors of the Congress to suspend Name, of the Green Alliance, already street, of the Liberal Party, “of its functions” in the positions they occupy in Congress for the 2022-2026 period.
“The Chamber considered that the legal requirements and constitutional purposes are met for the restriction of the freedom of the congressmen in the meantime the investigation against them progresses,” added the information.
The High Court investigates the two congressmen for the crimes of improper bribery and peculation for appropriation in favor of third parties.
-In May of last year, the former sub -director of the UNGRD Sneyder Pinilla revealed that money from that entity was used in 2023 to pay millionaire to Name and street when they were presidents of the Senate and the House of Representatives, respectively.
That money was supposedly diverted from the assigned for the purchase of 40 tank trucks to supply water to the Caribbean Department of La Guajira, a project in which the resources were embezzled because also the vehicles acquired did not meet the technical conditions, among other failures.
In those hiring of the UNGRD, the Congress explained last year, the congressmen “would have intervened” as “presidents of the Senate and the House of Representatives” and “would have received cash payments from the former Disaster Management Director.”
The corruption scandal in the UNGRD, an agency that is responsible for attending and preventing emergencies caused by natural disasters in the country, was uncovered by the press in February last year and since then it has been growing until reaching high government officials. EFE
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