Colombia’s Attorney General attacks proposal that would give ‘amnesty’ to drug traffickers

The Attorney General of Colombia, Francisco Barbosa, pointed out that the government of Gustavo Petro is trying to give rise to an “amnesty” to drug traffickers through a bill that the Ministry of Justice has introduced in Congress to “humanize the penalties” imposed on those who incur in crimes linked to the production and distribution of drugs.

“If the scenario is that they want an amnesty for drug trafficking in Colombia, they have to say so, but they cannot use a surreptitious mechanism to establish a benefit of this kind,” said the Colombian Attorney General.

Specifically, Barbosa has suggested that the Executive intends to use the bill to equate small coca growers – supposed to receive benefits in their sentences – to Colombian drug lords.

This would give way to alarming levels of impunity in the Latin American nation.

“The country cannot be cheated; we must play it straight. Article 8 establishes a benefit of suspension of the execution of sentences to all those small growers, and I agree with that, I have no problem with that, but we cannot tolerate that they tell us that they will benefit drug traffickers of another level according to the provisions that were involved in the drafting”, Barbosa also stated.

With information from LGI