A colonel of the Colombian Police in charge of the security of President Gustavo Petro committed suicide, the president himself reported today, ruling out that the officer had been murdered before journalistic versions that involved him in a recent case of illegal wiretapping that led to the resignation of two close officials.
Colonel Oscar Dávila, “assigned to the security of the Presidency of the Republic, has died by suicide,” said the ruler through his Twitter account.
“It is not true that the colonel was found dead or that there were two shots in his body,” he added.
Petro explained that Dávila’s job in the Presidency “was to secure the places” where the president attended, taking into account that he is one of the most threatened men in the country.
According to press reports, the policeman was involved in a scandal of illegal wiretapping, conspiracy and blackmail that led a week ago to the departure of the Government of Laura Sarabia, chief of staff and right hand of Petro, and the then ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti.
After a briefcase with thousands of dollars was stolen from Sarabia’s house, her nanny Marelbys Meza ended up being interrogated with a polygraph at the presidential headquarters and then her telephone conversations were intercepted using a false police report that linked her to drug traffickers, according to the Prosecutor’s Office. .
Benedetti, a politician who supported Petro in the campaign, and the former chief of staff shared the same babysitter and accuse each other of conspiracy, the AFP news agency said.
According to local media and the lawyer of a patrolman involved in the case, Dávila was pressured by the Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating whether there were irregularities or abuse of power in the interrogation of the nanny.
After learning of the colonel’s death, local media reported that he sent a letter expressing his availability to be heard and discuss Meza’s case.
The president pointed out that Dávila “sent his driver for a bottle of water near his house, he left his pistol on the seat and when he returned in front of him, he shot himself in the temple with the pistol he had left behind.”
He emphasized that “there are no more shots in the place” and that before committing suicide the officer “had received several calls from the press.”
“We regret the death of Lieutenant Colonel Óscar Darío Dávila Torres. Our solidarity with his relatives in this difficult moment,” Colombian Police Director William Salamanca wrote on Twitter.
Source: Ambito
