A special prosecutor belonging to the Office in the fight against the Organized Crime of the Office of the Attorney General is conducting the investigation. 

In compliance with the Strategic Direction defined by the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa Delgado,  a special prosecutor belonging to the Office in the fight against the Organized Crime Organized is conducting the investigation in which a search warrant was ordered on a property located in the rural area Barranconsito in the municipality of Nóvita (Chocó).

The action was ordered in order to arrest alias ‘Uriel’ and collect evidence, which will be added to the investigations carried out against this person for his alleged participation in terrorism actions and vandalism during the protests that recently took place in Bogotá and other cities of the country.  

A capture of forensic imaging was performed in judicial police procedures. The proceeding ‘actos urgentes’* will be carried out in Cali where a regional Dijin crime laboratory is based. 

Who is Uriel? 

The inter-institutional action carried out in the municipality of Nóvita (Chocó) by the Security Forces, supported by the National Police and the Office of the Attorney General, was aimed at arresting Andrés Felipe Vanegas Londoño, alias ‘Uriel’, considered as the political leader and member of the National Liberation Army (ELN).  

‘Uriel’ publicly admitted having infiltrated the protests that took place in various cities of the country last September, in which several Immediate Action Commands (Comando de Acción Inmediata CAI) of the National Police were targets of vandalism. 

Precisely,  Uriel´s actions were performed because he was one of those responsible for the political branch of the ELN and was considered the main influencer of the guerrilla doctrine of the ELN which was going to be carried out on social networks and national and international media. 

Urban Terrorism  

As a matter of fact, this would be a sample of the so-called Urban Terrorism which the Attorney General Francisco Barbosa Delgado referred to on October 8th, when he pointed out that the new scenario of confrontation posed by criminal groups that have refused to laid down their guns is the vandalism that cities have beared. 

“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 the seminar ‘Analysis and Prevention of Urban Terrorism’ (Analisis y Prevención del Terrorismo Urbano).  

The operation was carried out thanks the joint work between different State entities. This allowed the prosecution of those people allegedly responsible for outrages and illegal actions that affect public safety and public property during the disorders carried out in the protests in November 2019 and September 2020 in Bogotá. 

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

 

*Actos Urgentes: A term used to refer to judicial police activities during investigation and questioning process such as: processing a crime scene, corpse examination, questioning or interviews, among others.