The former ambassador of Petra tries to extinguish a political scandal: “I allowed myself to be carried away by anger and drink”

Armando Benedetti retires. Colombia’s former ambassador to Venezuela set the country on fire last weekend when he sent six minutes of audio Laura Sarabiathe former chief of staff of Gustavo Petar, with whom he maintains a strong dispute over power, insinuating the existence of illegal financing in the campaign of the left-wing president in 2022.

On Monday evening, when the flames were already difficult to extinguish, and the scandal paralyzed the legislative agenda in Congress, Benedetti he blamed alcohol for his words. “I was a fundamental part of the current political project of President Petar,” the center-right politician began to write, who managed to connect him with a part of the elite that renounces him when he was the leader of the left-wing leader’s campaign. “However, dissatisfied with what suits me politically, in an act of weakness and sadness I allowed myself to be carried away by anger and drink [alcohol]», concluded Benedetti, who previously said that the audio recordings published by the magazine WeekThey were manipulated.

The fire broke out when Benedetti asked for a relevant position in the executive branch and felt that Sarabia, 29, who had been his adviser for more than five years, was delaying his appointment as super minister, a position approved by the president.

The situation exploded when the one who was the babysitter for both of them, Marbelys Mezaappeared in Week decrying that he felt “kidnapped”, after being forced to take a polygraph after he missing $4,000 in government per diems for Sarabia’s home, a report that was made after Meza took a chartered flight to Caracas that cost $5,000. It was later revealed that the nanny had been subjected to illegal wiretapping.

Audio recordings were released this weekend in which Benedetti threatens to reveal where they came from 3.3 million euros from the Petro campaignwhere the process against the former liberal president Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) is mentioned due to the introduction of money from drug smuggling in his election campaign. “We are all sinking. Were done. Let’s go to jail, finish everything, son of a bitch,” Benedetti even told Sarabi.

“Not a single interview or audio recording showed that I committed a crime. The word is oa a simple attempt at a soft shot stop the fight against impunity,” Petro said on Monday afternoon after ordering his ministers to continue with the legislative agenda, despite the fact that the leader of the Chamber of Deputies, David Racero, of the Petrista Historic Pact, had requested the suspension of the debates until the situation improves and the Government regain the majority in the legislative body.

Right-wing congressmen filed a complaint with the Legislature over Benedetti’s insinuations. “It would not only be an illegitimate government, it would be illegal,” said former presidential candidate Fico Gutiérrez, a signatory of the letter, in front of a government whose popularity down six points in the past month.