2023-06-21 17:19:03
nation
Lawyer Daniel Caicedo assumed the defense of the former Sports Minister, who will go to trial after pleading not guilty.
21/6/2023
María Isabel Urrutia, former Minister of Sports, was charged by the Attorney General’s Office for the crime of contracts without complying with legal requirements. For the accusing body, on February 27, Urrutia took advantage of his last minutes at the head of the Ministry of Sports to cancel and sign 104 service contracts in record time with the sole purpose of “benefiting” a group of people “recommended ”.
Without any justification, Urrutia, who was removed from office by order of President Gustavo Petro, took advantage of the functions he had and canceled these contracts to renew them a few hours later, “with haste and eagerness” to favor the contractors. He “started signing contracts when he knew he was going to leave.”
Despite the fact that the contracts were valid for four months, Urrutia extended them. For the Prosecutor’s Office, this represents a clear irregularity, since he did not wait for his successor to make this determination. Because? For the Prosecutor’s Office, it is clear that the former minister wanted to leave “those recommended” and people close to her officials.
Faced with this situation, the Defense of Innocents Foundation announced that it will assume the legal defense of former Minister Urrutia. The lawyers Daniel Caicedo and Juan Camilo Sanclemente will be in charge of demonstrating that the former official, in their opinion, has not committed any crime.
“The Defense of Innocents Foundation assumed the defense of the former Minister of Sports and glory of national sports, Dr. María Isabel Urrutia. We reaffirm her transparency in the exercise of her position and her total innocence of the charge charged by the Prosecutor’s Office, ”said the attorney through Twitter.
For his part, Urrutia pleaded not guilty to the charges and assured that “yes, I understood them, but I do not accept them and I am going to trial.”
Precisely when President Petro asked Urrutia and two other ministers to resign, a great commotion arose around the Sports Minister. In the La U party they had already denounced alleged irregularities in the management of the ex-minister. However, she has said that it was taken from her portfolio without notifying her and that instead what she sought was to fight corruption in the Ministry of Sport. According to what she told SEMANA Urrutia, she went “for trying to change the sport, because she wanted it for athletes and not for politicians. That was my speech.”
Another person who made her opinion known and is close to Petrism was Congresswoman Katherine Miranda, from the Green Alliance, who also questioned the way in which she carried out several of the contracts. “The behavior of ex-minister Urrutia is unacceptable, almost 30 billion pesos in freelance contracting. Getting out of it is not enough, it deserves an investigation by the control agencies, ”requested the congresswoman.
This case still has a long way to go to be resolved. The truth is that the ex-minister and her defense must delay her innocence in court and justify whether or not she signed the contracts.
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