Prosecutor's Office investigates alleged plot by former Colombian foreign minister to overthrow Petro

Bogotá.- The Attorney General's Office of Colombia is conducting an investigation into the alleged plan of former Colombian Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva to seek support in Republican circles in the United States to remove President Gustavo Petro from power, the agency reported on Tuesday.

Sources from the Prosecutor's Office confirmed that the entity is conducting "an investigation to which all these inquiries on the subject are added", for which a prosecutor is carrying out "investigative acts and orders to the judicial Police that will allow to establish the scope of the reported facts and that continue to be reported and requested to be investigated".

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Leyva's plan to overthrow Petro was revealed on Sunday by the newspaper El País, based on audios that reveal that, two months ago, the former chancellor met in the United States with Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, in an attempt to get closer to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and exert "international pressure" against Petro to put in his place the vice president, Francia Márquez, who on Tuesday asked the Prosecutor's Office to clarify the plot. Leyva, an 82-year-old conservative politician, was the first chancellor appointed by Petro when he took office in August 2022, but since leaving the government last year, he has repeatedly accused the president of having drug addiction problems, something that, according to El País, the veteran politician considered the first step to remove him from the presidency. In one of the recordings accessed by the Spanish newspaper, Leyva implies that he has the support of the vice president, but she already rejected it on Sunday in a statement, where she assured that she "never" has betrayed "nor questioned the legitimate authority of the first president of the Nation". "There is no possibility of me lending myself to conspiracies. I am not moved by resentment or convenience, and to those who believe they can use me as an instrument of their ambitions, I say: they are deeply mistaken," Márquez expressed in the note.

Petro Demands Explanations

For his part, Petro declared on Monday to the media from Seville, where he is attending the IV International Conference of the UN on Financing for Development, that his number two should give public explanations and before the justice. "All the people that (Leyva) names there, of whom I don't know if what he says is true or not, must give explanations and not only public policies, but also before the justice system," said the president. Leyva highlighted Márquez's alleged role in this plot by referring to the criticisms that the official expressed in a controversial council of ministers against the chancellor, Laura Sarabia, and other people close to Petro, which triggered a crisis in the Government, and suggests that it was all her idea.