.BOGOTA: Colombia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday selected Luz Adriana Camargo as the country’s new attorney general after weeks of political tension over delays in appointing someone to the role.Camargo, a former judge who spent 12 years in the state attorney’s office in the 1990s and early 2000s, was also an assigned prosecutor at the Supreme Court, investigating ties between lawmakers and right-wing paramilitary groups.The court’s delay in appointing a replacement for Francisco Barbosa, whose term ended in February, has sparked tensions with left-wing President Gustavo Petro, who said it was a split in institutional practice and condemned attempts to remove him from power.Both the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have called for a speedy trial without pressure on the court.“With eighteen votes, Luz Adriana Camargo Garzon was elected the country’s new attorney general,” Gerson Chaverra, president of the Supreme Court, told reporters.Camargo, who was chosen over one other candidate after a third hopeful named Petro withdrew at the last minute, worked for the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala from 2014 to 2017, where she led an investigative team and worked with current Colombian Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez. .She also consulted with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the case of three Ecuadorian journalists kidnapped and killed by a Colombian armed group.Camargo will lead a sensitive investigation – including allegations of illegal financing of Peter’s 2022 presidential campaign.Peter’s eldest son Nicolas, a former provincial lawmaker, is being prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office for alleged enrichment and money laundering in an investigation launched more than a year ago.According to the indictment, Petro received money from accused drug traffickers in exchange for including them in his father’s peace plans, though the elder Petro denied knowledge of any illegal activity.Also on Perez’s docket is a long-running case against right-wing former president Alvaro Uribe for alleged witness tampering and fraud, apparently designed to discredit allegations that he had ties to paramilitaries.
