Luz Adriana Camargo Garzón will lead investigations into President Petro and his son after weeks of delay in the appointment process.
The Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia elected Luz Adriana Camargo Garzón as the country's new attorney general, amid the current turmoil in the government of President Gustavo Petro.
Camargo was a former judge who worked in the Attorney General's Office for 12 years, starting in the 1990s. She was also a prosecutor attached to the Supreme Court of Justice, where she investigated links between legislators and right-wing paramilitary groups.
She is set to lead several sensitive investigations, including an investigation into allegations of illegal financing in Petro's 2022 presidential campaign.
The Attorney General's Office is also prosecuting Petro's eldest son, Nicolás, a former provincial legislator, for alleged corruption and money laundering, as part of an investigation that began more than a year ago.
“With 18 votes, Luz Adriana Camargo Garzón was elected as the country's new attorney general,” Gerson Chaverra, president of the Supreme Court of Justice, told reporters on Tuesday. A total of 23 judges had the right to vote.
The previous attorney general, Francisco Barbosa, a prominent critic of Petro, saw his four-year term end in February. Camargo's appointment comes amid weeks of political tensions and protests over delays in appointing an official to the position.
In January, Petro presented three candidates to the Supreme Court to succeed Barbosa, after having promised to fill the imminent vacancy with a woman. But the voting process had stalled in the weeks since.
Last month, hundreds of pro-Petro protesters surrounded the Supreme Court to demonstrate against the slowdown.
The United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called for Barbosa's replacement to be named quickly, without any additional pressure on the court.
On Tuesday, before Camargo was voted in, there was another shakeup in the process: Amelia Pérez, long considered the favorite to fill the seat, announced that she would withdraw her candidacy.
Perez's prospects had dimmed in recent days after her husband's social media posts became the subject of scandal.
According to publications such as Semana magazine, Pérez's husband, Gregorio Oviedo, had used his online platforms to insult the Supreme Court and other judges, as well as to criticize the investigation into Petro's son.
Petro himself has criticized the attorney general's office for its investigations into his campaign and has denied any wrongdoing. Petro, the first left-wing president in Colombia's modern history, has also faced strong opposition from right-wing lawmakers.
Before his appointment on Tuesday, Camargo worked for the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) between 2014 and 2017, where he led the investigations team. While he held that position, he was a colleague of the current Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez.
Carmago also consulted with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the case of three Ecuadorian journalists kidnapped and murdered by a Colombian armed group.
As Colombia's new attorney general, Carmago will oversee a case alleging that young Petro received money from accused drug traffickers in exchange for a beneficial deal in his father's “Total Peace” plan, a framework to end the armed conflict that has affected Colombia for almost 60 years. years.
Carmago will also manage the long-running case against former right-wing President Álvaro Uribe for witness tampering and fraud, allegedly part of a plan to discredit accusations that he had ties to paramilitary groups.
Uribe has denied the accusations against him.
