President Petro denies having received money from drug trafficking | News

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, denied a local publication that attributed threats to reveal alleged links to drug trafficking to a former member of the foreign service politician.

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The president assured that his electoral campaign did not receive money from drug trafficking nor has his government done anything illegal, "much less has figures such as 15,000 million been handled outside of our accounting."

In this sense, Petro said "I do not accept blackmail, nor do I see politics as a space for personal favors," he said in a publication on digital networks.

Petro responded in this way to statements attributed to former ambassador Armando Benedetti, who, according to a Colombian publication, opposed to the Government, had threatened to reveal secrets of the presidential campaign, upset by the treatment received, in conversations with the now former chief of staff, Laura Sarabia .

Sarabia is a young lawyer who worked with Benedetti when he was a senator, was an adviser in the presidential campaign and later chief of staff until the scandal was uncovered over an alleged illegal interrogation and the interceptions of his ex-nanny for an alleged theft of money.

The content of the recordings caused immediate repudiation in political sectors and Benedetti later published a message on Twitter in which he assures that the audios were manipulated.

"The audios of @RevistaSemana have been manipulated. I apologize to the president @petrogustavo and @laurisarabia for the aggression and the malicious attack that does NOT come from me," he said.

In this regard, Petro assures that he came to the Presidency "only to achieve more social justice in my country. That is what moves and obsesses me. If there are people in a different logic in the Government, it is better that they separate from it."

"I think I understand what is happening to Armando Benedetti's mind, I accept his apologies, but he must explain his words to the Prosecutor's Office and the country," added the president, after the former ambassador apologized for his threats, full of swear words and offenses personal, and said that the audios were "manipulated".