The Investigation and Impeachment Committee of the Colombian House of Representatives announced the start of a preliminary inquiry on Wednesday against far-left President Gustavo Petro over his alleged drug addiction.
The inquiry, the Committee explained, stems from a complaint presented by Wilson Ruiz, who served as justice minister between 2020 and 2022 under the administration of conservative former President Iván Duque. Ruiz called upon the Committee to investigate Petro based on the contents of a series of explosive letters published in recent weeks by Petro’s former Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva, who accused the Colombian president of having a drug problem.
The Committee pointed out that, in accordance with Colombian law, it is authorized to adjudicate complaints against the president “for facts that may constitute disciplinary misconduct, unworthiness, or misconduct in the exercise of his functions.”
The preliminary probe will be conducted by a parliamentary triumvirate composed of liberal congressman Carlos Cuenca of the Radical Change party, Wadith Manzur of the Conservative Party, and Olga Lucía Velásquez of the Green Alliance party. Velásquez, who according to the Colombian magazine Semana is a close associate of Petro, did not sign the document that announces the start of the investigative process.
Velásquez reportedly issued a letter to Congressman Cuenca expressing her “concerns” with what she considers to be alleged irregularities in the processing of the inquiry against Petro that “directly violates due process and denaturalizes the very essence of the triumvirate.” According to the Congresswoman, the Committee issued the inquiry before the end of the eight-day deadline granted to former Justice Minister Ruiz to submit documents, which, according to her, contravenes the process.
The Committee called upon Colombia’s Judicial Police to deliver, within five working days, all the required information to summon Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva so that he can testify to Congress over the contents of his letters.
Former Justice Minister Wilson Ruiz, who presented the complaint at the Investigation and Impeachment Committee, expressed support the start of the investigation process against Petro and that the Congress will call Leyva to testify over the contents of his letters. Ruiz stressed that “presidential dignity cannot be left to the sway of whims, much less the consumption of hallucinogenic substances.”
“There is no persecution here, there is duty, and there is country. Institutions cannot be complicit in the deterioration of national leadership,” Ruiz said.
President Gustavo Petro has not publicly commented on the start of the Committee’s drug addiction probe against him at press time.
Álvaro Leyva served as Petro’s first foreign minister from August 2022 to May 2024. Between late April and early May of this year, Leyva published two explosive letters addressed to Petro in which he accused the far-left president of suffering from drug addiction problems based on the “direct knowledge that I have had and still have of situations and facts.” The former foreign minister called on Petro to consider resignation in light of his alleged drug addiction.
Leyva claimed in the letter released in April that he was first able to “confirm” Petro’s alleged drug problem when the latter went missing for two days during an unspecified official visit to Paris, France. In the following letter, Leyva recounted several “embarrassing” and “scandalous” occurrences caused by Petro with other heads of state throughout 2023 that he presented as evidence of the Petro’s ongoing substance problems. Among those alleged instances were Petro refusing to speak with Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping during a lavish banquet reception during his official visit to China that year, lamenting the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in East Germany during his visit to Germany, and repeatedly refusing to pick up the phone for a conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Petro has repeatedly refuted the drug addiction claims. In April, he asserted that he has “simply been slandered” by Leyva. Petro claimed that he was allegedly accompanied “at all times” by the French Secret Service at the time of his alleged disappearance in the European country. In May, Petro accused Leyva of allegedly conspiring with other Colombians to overthrow his government in purported meetings “organized” by Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL). Díaz-Balart responded to Petro’s accusations at the time by urging him to “seek professional help with [his] addiction problem.”
In late May, Foreign Minister Leyva published a third letter in which he denounced that both he and his family have received threats in response to the first two letters. Leyva further wrote that he received reports indicating that unspecified individuals are seeking to harm him “both administratively and criminally,” and stressed that he will hold Petro responsible for anything that may happen to him or his family.
“Be clear Gustavo: I will not shut up! My life, already long even if it bothers you, will continue to have meaning only if I fight for Colombia to recover the dignity stained by your sick and uncontrolled behavior, of which I have been a witness,” Leyva wrote at the time. “Colombia’s image abroad cannot continue to be that of a president who neglects his duties, erratic, despot and prisoner of vice. Diaz-Balart is right: How embarrassing! And I add: How sad!”
Last week, Leyva shared a new letter to Petro through local outlets urging the far-left president to resign and emphasized that he is not withdrawing “a single paragraph, not a comma, not a single point” of the letters he wrote previously.
“Certainly its content, to those who have not been aware of his misconduct, was apparently cruel. Some say disloyalty; others say treason. But, nevertheless, nothing of what was affirmed in those letters you have been able to contradict,” Leyva reportedly wrote.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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