Two of the most important political houses on the Caribbean coast – the Char and the Gerlein – were accused from Caracas (Venezuela) by former congresswoman Aida Merlano of setting up their escape and orchestrating an alleged plan to assassinate her.
Faced with a judge from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, dressed in a red jacket and black pants, the Barranquilla policy asked Nicolás Maduro take your case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, He defended his innocence and threw darts against several of Colombia’s most influential politicians.
“To help me, because I am afraid to return to my country, where I know that they may possibly attempt or attempt again against my life as they have done repeatedly,” Merlano said in an informal audience, requested by herself, to which in an unusual way for the opaque Venezuelan judicial proceedings was broadcast live.
A little more than four months after the cinematic escape that the country knew, which cost the former Inpec director and put in doubt the security protocols with which Merlano went to a medical appointment, the policy sentenced to 15 years by the Court Justice Supreme by concert to aggravated crime, corruption to the suffragante and illegal possession of weapons appeared claiming that he is innocent against a foreign government with which Colombia has no active diplomatic relations. Moreover, against which the government of President Duque has deployed an international strategy of “diplomatic encirclement” with the objective of favoring a political transition in the neighboring country.
After the explosive declarations of Merlano in Caracas, the Colombian justice has the challenge of declaring the accusations launched by the former congressman and separating what at first sounds unlikely from what may be true, since it is presumed that indeed Merlano has in his possession key information on the operation of illegal electoral companies on the Coast.
In Colombia, Merlano offered to tell the Prosecutor details of the electoral process in his region, about facts that could be crimes. However, the officials of the investigating body who approached the prison of El Buen Pastor to know this information always left empty-handed. While that was happening, the escape plan by which Merlano’s daughter, Aída Victoria, and her dentist, Javier Guillermo Cely, were already under investigation.
Although some of the allegations made by Merlano are problematic – such as assuming that after his escape there was an alleged kidnapping – several names mentioned by her were already on the radar of the Colombian authorities, even before Merlano was taken off Second floor using a red rope.
The Colombian authorities already have indications of investigation, as evidenced by the compulsory copies ordered by the Court in the conviction against the former congressman. The magistrates requested that 17 more people be investigated. Among these, Senator Arturo Char, current president of that corporation in Congress; the representative Laureano Augusto Acuña Díaz, the deputy Margarita Ballén and the businessman Julio Gerlein, who was a sentimental couple of Merlano and is accused by her of wanting to kill her.
During the process before the Court, Merlano denied that he had committed crimes of electoral corruption, as he did this week in Caracas. Instead, he assured the high court that the headquarters he had and where the search was carried out that led to his capture and subsequent conviction had been opened long ago for Roberto Gerlein’s campaign, who lasted 50 years in Congress, until 2018.
Merlano said that the political activity of former senator Gerlein was sponsored by his brother Julio, who decided that she was his formula. Merlano also said that Julio Gerlein was the one who gave the instructions to sign the contract to lease the headquarters known as the ‘white house’.
According to Merlano, “Julio was the one who managed the headquarters and knew everything” what was happening there. He even said that Gerlein was in charge of everything administrative, as well as logistics and campaign expenses.
Therefore, that Merlano had already given stitches in Colombia of what he now says in Venezuela suggests that the new scenario is increasingly political than legal.
The Prosecutor’s Office already has indications to consider whether or not to open investigations against these statements. This is also demonstrated in that more than a year ago, in November 2018, the investigating entity forced copies against the current president of the Senate to the Supreme Court “to determine if there is merit to investigate Senator Arturo Char Chaljub, according to the evidence obtained that would account for its possible participation in the financing of activities that undermine democratic participation, ”he said at the time.
However, in his televised statement in Caracas – in which he did not refer to the facts for which he was captured in Venezuela, and merely apologized for entering the country illegally -, Merlano said he had videos, audios and documents that prove the responsibility of several people in the commission of crimes. If true, they could be key pieces to unravel the criminal network that worked around the blanca white house ’.
But the obstacles for the Prosecutor’s Office and the Court to access these alleged evidence are obvious.
Since there are no diplomatic relations, judicial cooperation between two governments that do not understand each other is difficult. This was made clear in recent days by the prosecutor, Fabio Espitia. And the other way out, which would be the extradition that the Court asked the government to start on Friday, also has no political floor. Hours after Merlano fell recaptured in Maracaibo, the Duke government made it clear that he would ask the interim government of Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, who lacks real power before the institutions of his country.
Merlano knew how to take advantage of the political differences between the countries in his favor. It is so much that at the end of this week the Venezuelan prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, left open the possibility of his country studying granting the former congressman the status of refugee or political asylum seeker. Also, the Chavista regime is using it to discredit or at least muddle the Colombian Government, the same for which she says she feels at risk. This reaffirms that Merlano’s case went from being a judicial matter to becoming a political challenge in which The international relations of the country remain in the middle.
For the time being, there is no clear or expedited exit for Merlano to return to Colombia or for the evidence he claims to have in his possession to the hands of the country’s authorities. Therefore, researchers in the country will have to look for other research routes and collection of evidence to determine what Merlano says is true and what is not.
JUSTICE
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