Gustavo Petro wants his closest environment to be investigated.
The president has asked this Thursday, to the general surprise, that the prosecutor's office investigate his brother and his eldest son for an alleged plot in which some lawyers say they speak on behalf of the Government to collect money from prisoners who want to join total peace .
He hopes, as he has said, that his relatives can prove his innocence, but he will respect the conclusions reached by justice.
Petro has come out to say this through a statement due to "the information that is rumored in public opinion", although for now nothing reliable has been published in this regard.
In January, the Prosecutor's Office announced that it would summon the High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, and the brother of the President of the Republic, Juan Fernando Petro, to testify.
So his son, Nicolás Petro, did not appear involved.
The attorney general, Francisco Barbosa, said he was concerned about the reports that circulated in the media about alleged payments by drug traffickers to be considered peace managers and thus obtain freedom.
Barbosa pointed out that Petro shared that concern and that he wanted the matter to be clarified as soon as possible.
Since he came to power, the president has promoted a project known as total peace, which consists of negotiating with the ELN and other groups that can be considered subversives and subjecting groups of criminals and drug traffickers to the law.
He would offer the latter a reduction in sentences and a low percentage of their earnings —between 3 and 6%— for turning themselves in to the authorities and abandoning crime.
According to some reports, there are people who have taken advantage of this opportunity to offer their services to prisoners who want to see their sentences reduced in exchange for money.
They make them believe that they have a direct line with Petro.
At this point where Juan Fernando Petro and Nicolás Petro, the first of the sons the president had in his youth, are involved in some way.
Petro has been blunt in the statement he has made public.
He has said that the only one who has the backing to contact groups outside the law and speak on behalf of his government is Danilo Rueda, his peace commissioner, and in no case Juan Fernando or Nicolás.
“My Government will not grant criminal benefits in exchange for bribes.
On the contrary, we are in the construction of legal mechanisms so that these groups outside the law accept justice, make reparation to the victims and stop the violence in the cities and other territories”, he said.
It has gone even further.
“My commitment to Colombia and Colombians is to achieve peace and whoever wants to interfere in that purpose, or take personal advantage of it, has no place in the Government, even if they are members of my family.
I trust that my brother and son can prove their innocence, but I will respect the conclusions reached by justice", the letter ended.
Hours later, Semana magazine published an interview with Day Vásquez, ex-wife of Nicolás Petro.
Vásquez maintains that Nicolás charged large amounts of money from businessmen who believed they were contributing to Petro's presidential campaign, when in reality he kept the money.
"Everything has been done behind the president's back," Vásquez insists on several occasions.
Among the many excesses of Nicolás that she recounts, she tells that the boy used a contractor's truck until the president asked him not to do so and to return it.
"He told me: if he wants to become a billionaire like the children of the other former presidents, he was very wrong, because he was not going to allow it," she says in the interview.
Subscribe here
to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the latest information on the country.