Henry Sanabria has been consistent until the last moment.
The general said goodbye to his post this Thursday kneeling in a church in front of an image of the baby Jesus: "I thank God, President Gustavo Peto and the Minister of Defense for allowing me to have been the general director of the Colombian Police" .
Sanabria has been dismissed by Gustavo Petro due to his religious fanaticism and his ideas against abortion and the rights of minorities such as the LGTBI community.
His presence in a government that claims to be progressive was shocking.
The general has uploaded two messages on Twitter with the same photo: in it he appears dressed in a Police uniform, on his knees, with a gun, handcuffs and a walkie-talkie on his belt in front of an
altar
.
A true soldier of Christ.
All around there are people standing and sitting on plastic chairs who also seem to be praying.
In his second message, Sanabria throws himself into the arms of God: "My departure with 'goodbye'": "To God I trust my #soul, to God I trust my story, to God I trust mine, to God I trust the residents of #Colombia, to God I entrust the Military Forces, to God I entrust the National Police and to God I entrust everything”.
I thank #God, the president @petrogustavo and the defense minister, for allowing me to have been the general director of the @policiadecolombia.
pic.twitter.com/Rze9sKFI8V
— General Henry Armando Sanabria Cely (@henryproteger) April 12, 2023
The president has not said that religious exaltation is the reason why Sanabria has been dismissed.
What's more, on several occasions he has assured that he respected religious freedom and that he did not measure the performance of his official for this reason.
However, according to government sources, the general has gone too far by making clearly homophobic statements and questioning fundamental rights enshrined in Colombian law: he said he was against gay marriage and blamed gay police officers for spreading AIDS in police stations. .
The police chief became a character that bothered members of the Government, who have asked Petro several times in private to fire him.
Petro does not like being told what to do, and it has taken him a month to relieve Sanabria.
The noise around the general was already unbearable.
On Women's Day, for example, he wrote some macho comments on his social networks that made many of the president's partners throw their hands up.
The Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, opened an investigation against him after accusations that his fanatical beliefs had permeated the institution and clouded his good judgment.
In a public act, Sanabria said that the agents that she was unfaithful to her partners were not trustworthy.
The general looked more like a Francoist priest on a pulpit than the director of a secular institution.
His eccentricities have cost him the position, finally.
The people around Petro have fired Sanabria with the same discretion as his boss, but in private they have shown relief at his departure.
Laura Sarabia, the president's number 2, thanked him for his work, but in the same tweet she greeted the arrival of General William Salamanca, his replacement.
She didn't seem to mourn his removal.
A dead king, king set.
Subscribe here
to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the latest information on the country.
