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Evidence released by Colombian outlet Noticias Uno shows that a U.S. Embassy official was intimately involved in a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) conspiracy to discredit Colombia’s war crimes tribunal (JEP) last year.
A letter sent in February last year by special agent Craig M. Michelin, part of the DEA’s Colombia Office, requested of his liaison at Colombia’s Attorney General's Office to provide $500,000 for an illegal operation against the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).
Michel was previously involved in a local conspiracy leaked by local media that resulted in the arrest of former FARC leader “Jesus Santrich” and sunk Colombia’s peace process in crisis in April 2018.
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In October, the criminal conspiracy to extradite Santrich started to fail, after which a DEA agent arrived in an attempt once again to entrap JEP chief prosecutor Giovanni Alvarez and magistrate Ivan Gonzalez.
Michelin then wrote prosecutor Mauricio Nieto on February 25, 2019, after the second conspiracy failed, indicating that “a criminal organization” agreed to meet “in order to sell, delay or omit decisions that are part of criminal and administrative drug trafficking processes…in exchange for a sum of approximately $500 thousand dollars.”
The United States government admits that its $11,600,000,000 in “assistance” for Colombia including $10,000,000,000 for Plan Colombia has been a colossal FAILURE.
— Camila (@camilateleSUR) December 14, 2020
Colombia remains the world’s largest cocaine producer and today the Colombian people are being SLAUGHTERED. pic.twitter.com/J32SIGhJjE
Days before assistant prosecutorJulian Carlos Bermeo received $40,000 while in the company of the convicted criminal and former Senator Luis Alberto Gil, former Prosecutor General Nestor Humberto Martinez personally granted the money requested on February 27.
In a different location in Bogota, one of Gil's associates, Orlando Villamizar, simultaneously received $460,000.
The prosecution claims that Bermeo agreed to delay the JEP’s testing of evidence against Santrich, which was rejected by the suspect and dismissed by Alvarez, who said to the media that Bermeo could in no way influence the proceedings.
Martinez resigned in May 2019 after the JEP ordered an investigation against the former chief prosecutor and DEA agents who were conspiring against Santrich and the FARC’s former political head, Ivan Marquez, since even before June 2017.
El Espectador made records public last month by revealing that the prosecution was conspiring to frame FARC members and pro-peace politicians since February 2017 without any success.
The US government’s interference in Colombia's internal affairs strained relations between the US government and Colombia’s judicial and legislative branches, spurring Santrich and Marquez to regroup and rearm.
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