The release of the son of ‘La Gata’ to promote total peace unleashes a scandal in Colombia

A fire in the total peace policy of the Government of Gustavo Petro has caused this Wednesday the release order of Jorge Luis Alfonso Lopez, decreed by a judge from Barranquilla. According to the release ticket, the support is that he was designated as a peace facilitator, for which he was assigned by the Executive. Alfonso is the son of Enilce Lopez, alias ‘La Gata’, convicted of her relationship with paramilitary groups, and is serving a sentence of home prison for conspiring to commit a crime and for the murders of journalist Rafael Prins, Edgar Carrasquilla and businessman Yamil Kassen. The Government has said that it has not asked for his release.

It was the fifth court for the execution of sentences and security measures in Barranquilla that ordered his release from prison, by issuing a release ticket on February 2. The document indicates that this office decreed “the temporary suspension of the application of the sentence faced by Mr. Jorge Luis Alfonso Lopez [] until all tasks are carried out as peace facilitator”. And he concludes: “Consequently, issue an order for release only on account of this process.”

Two days later, on February 4, the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC) published a statement informing that it had received the release slip for Alfonso Lopez, who had been in house arrest since October 14, 2021, and that “the corresponding procedure was brought forward.”

In the same text, the Commissioner’s office confirmed that Alfonso Lopez was authorized to verify “the real desire for peace and reintegration into civilian life” of the organized armed groups, adding that this work must be carried out from his place of confinement, something that, according to the same document, was already verified by that office. The National Government, the statement closes, will ask the judge who granted Alfonso’s freedom to revoke it, since, according to his concept, “it is not based on current laws.”

Minutes after the publication of the statement, the Minister of the Interior and government spokesman, Alfonso Prada, gave a brief press conference in which he reiterated that Alfonso Lopez “is a peace facilitator from his place of confinement and not a peace manager.” The minister explained that the role of the facilitators is to contribute to the approaches that lead to the dismantling of illegal armed groups so that they submit to the law, within the policy of the Government of President Gustavo Petro and his commitment to total peace.

Prada added that the National Government did not request any release order. As in the statement from the office of the High Commissioner for Peace, she asked the judge who ordered the release of Alfonso Lopez to revoke it. “If it occurred,” Prada emphasized, “it is given in the autonomy of the judge, who, we understand, surely in a mistake has not used the laws in force for this matter.”