The Colombian Government’s refusal to request the extradition of former congresswoman Aida Merlano, arrested on Tuesday in Venezuela, responds to the information she has about corrupt management of politicians in the neo-Granadean country.
“The truth is that he (Iván Duque) does not want Aida Merlano to return to Colombia because she knows many things about the Colombian political class and it would be an unbearable scandal for them”, said the president of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro.
From Fort Tiuna, located in Caracas, he said that maintaining impunity for corrupt clans is the reason for Bogotá’s rejection of Venezuela’s proposal to restore consular relations in order to solve security problems.
“Duque does not want the truth to be known, that is why he is shielded (…) He will not do it because he is guided by an extremist ideology and corruption interests that he does not want to be known”, he said during the presentation of a balance of the Mission Venezuela Bella.
The president, who reiterated that Merlano “is talking and is telling everything,” recalled that Venezuelan authorities have captured more than 30 fugitives from Colombian justice, including members of the Los Rastrojos paramilitary gang.
“Everyone has been captured as mandated by law, but Duque’s Government does not want us to extradite them, he prefers to live in his fantasy world”, he said.
Former congresswoman Merlano, condemned by the neo-Granadean country’s justice for concerted crimes to aggravate crime, corruption to the suffragent and illegal possession of weapons, would be related to the mafia clans of the Atlantic Coast.
According to RT, the attorney general of Colombia, Fernando Carrillo, said that various political sectors feared the information that Merlano could give to justice.
Aida Merlano would have a relationship with the Char family, businessman Julio Gerlein and the Radical Change political party, identified as the most powerful groups on the Caribbean Coast.
The Radical Change party was one of the most affected by the parapolitics scandal that broke out in 2016, after links were discovered between several of its members and illegal armed groups of the extreme right wing.
