Venezuelan regime’s former spy chief Hugo Carvajal refused to testify against Colombian candidate Gustavo Petro in an audience with a Colombian judge, where Carvajal was meant to explain the alleged payment that the Venezuelan regime has made to the former guerrilla.
This situation represented a massive surprise in Colombia because of the expectations. After all, almost every single major newspaper, TV station and radio station were reporting about the importance of this audience, pointing out that this could represent a turning point in Petro’s chances of becoming Colombia’s president. We need to remember that this whole situation takes place during one of the most delicate presidential campaigns in Colombia’s modern history.
As reported by Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, when the court asked him about this alleged payment, Carvajal refused to elaborate, claiming that he was currently negotiating his extradition process to the US, and that he wasn’t allowed to make any comment on this issue.
The surprising aspect of this moment was that, over the last few weeks Carvajal was eager to reveal the whole information he allegedly had on the radical left-wing candidate. In fact, Petro’s presidential campaign has been dodging plenty of questions on this matter, despite the fact that the presidential candidate has claimed he’s innocent and that Carvajal’s accusations should be investigated to determine he’s lying.
The response against Carvajal.
Following this situation, Petro’s campaign claimed that “this only proves Petro is innocent and that Carvajal is lying.” Of course, they needed to take advantage of this momentum and get some kind of victory that would definitely help the former guerrilla member clean his image.
After all, we need to remember that the links between Petro and the Venezuelan regime do exist, to the point where he was one of the main defenders of former dictator Hugo Chavez and even Nicolas Maduro in Colombia. Checking Petro’s Twitter, you can find a lot of controversial tweets where he even claimed that the widespread crisis that the South American nation has been experiencing since the rise of chavismo has been because of the United States’ sanctions against Caracas.
Carvajal’s words.
Carvajal told authorities in Spain that the Venezuelan regime had a lot of intentions of expanding its influence around the world, being the reason why it allegedly paid a lot of money to different presidents and candidates all around the world, including Petro.
Among the different presidents and presidential candidates, the most notorious cases are the ones of Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. But far from expanding their influence only in Latin America, Carvajal has explained that the Venezuelan regime managed to fulfill this operation in different countries across Europe, being Spain and Italy the main ones with the financing of Podemos and the Five-Star Movement.
According to different media outlets, Carvajal explained that he’s not denying these claims against Colombia’s presidential candidate, and that he’s willing to testify against Petro only to negotiate the extradition.
Of course, it is an undeniable fact that Carvajal’s decision of not to make any comment about the money that the Venezuelan regime allegedly gave to Petro, is the best type of news that the former guerrilla member could have received. After all, the vast majority of political analysts in Colombia agree that if the links between Petro and the Venezuelan regime are confirmed, this situation could definitely destroy Petro’s presidential aspirations.
Why? Because of the fact that the Venezuelan regime’s popularity among Colombians is extremely low, especially because Colombia is the country that has received more Venezuelan migrants and refugees around the world.
