In the seminar Analysis and Prevention of Urban Terrorism (Analisis y Prevención del Terrorismo Urbano”, the Attorney General pointed out that the entity coordinates its capacities to prosecute criminal organizations responsible for acts of vandalism and to affect their illicit sources of financing. 

During the online seminar Analysis and Prevention of Urban Terrorism which was organized by the Presidential Council for National Security, the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa Delgado, assured that the new scenario of confrontation posed by those criminal groups who refuse to laid down their guns and by those who are using them, is the vandalism that has been taking place in the cities in recent days. 

“The Colombian democracy is currently being attacked not only through frontal armed harassment in remote rural areas of the country, but through an urban war doctrine based on the recruitment of our young people and the strategic division of tasks and the organized instigation of violence” stated the Attorney General. 

In his speech, he pointed out that the Office of the Attorney General pursues this type of criminal actions with all its capacity, in light of the criminal law, on the understanding that the unusual wave of vandalism does not respect public property neither citizens´ life and integrity. 

“What is transparent and legally exact, is to name this phenomenon in its precise dimensions: without euphemisms, it is of the criminal type of terrorism. In an even more worrying way than others already known, since it has the effect of damaging one of the essential pillars of any constitutional democracy: the sacred right to protest” emphasized Attorney General Barbosa. 

To approach this criminal phenomenon, the Office of the Attorney General has coordinated the capacities of all its offices, directorates and units to have a comprehensive vision of vandalism and to be able to figure out its origin and effects. Thanks to this joint work, outstanding results have been obtained, such as the prosecution of four alleged members of an urban group that committed  damages and disorder during the protests that took place in Bogotá between October 2019 and September 2020. 

“The Office of the Attorney General has carried out actions aimed at clarifying the events of vandalism and the alleged infiltration of the protest by Organized Armed Groups. Also, the possible excesses against the civil population by the police force. Each and every act of the violence hurts and matters”, assured the Attorney General. 

The investigations and judicial actions carried out by the Office of the Attorney General are aimed at dismantling these criminal networks that promote terrorism in cities, at attacking their illicit sources of financing and at revealing all the links that affect the tranquility and security of citizens. 

“The Office of the Attorney General will continue performing its functions with excellence, dedication and independence within the framework of its legal powers. For this purpose, it will have a permanent and specialized work team. Only in this way, we will be able to contribute to the strengthening of our democracy and to the consolidation of peace in Colombia ”, concluded the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa Delgado. 

The Office of the Attorney General makes this information public for reasons of general interest.