The officers allegedly took part in illegally detaining a man, accused of having stolen 10 million COP.
A police officer and two patrolmen of the National Police, who allegedly conspired with two private individuals to commit a crime, were prosecuted before a judge for being allegedly responsible, according to their alleged individual responsibilities, for extortion, illegal deprivation of liberty and ideological falsehood in a public document. None pleaded guilty to the charges.
The actions led by the Attorney General’s Office to tackle crimes against public administration allowed to send the five defendants to prison, where they must serve the measure that was imposed.
A prosecutor appointed to the Unit on Crimes against Public Administration determined that on October 6, 2023, the Officer Jhon Geulis Palacio López and patrolmen Mauricio David Herrera Eraso and Jorge Esteban Arrieta Dávila allegedly arrested Maicol Andretti Zapata Martínez, accused by brothers Cristian Camilo and José Alberto Ríos Castañeda of having stolen 10 million COP from them.
The investigation determined that the detainee was not placed under the authority of the Office of the Attorney General; but he was detained and handcuffed for about three hours in the so-called Naranjal neighborhood in Medellín, where he was transferred in an official patrol car. There, the victim was pressured to return the money he had allegedly stolen.
The actions carried out by Dijin of the National Police revealed that during the illegal detention of Zapata Martínez, he was asked to pay 20 million COP to avoid his prosecution for theft. As a result of the pressure, the victim’s partner handed over 10 million COP. Once the money was received, the police officers read Zapata Martínez his rights as a person arrested in flagrante delicto, but they did not report the delivery of the aforementioned sum.
The information contained in this press release corresponds to the narration of the objective news provided by the officials in charge of carrying out criminal investigations within the Office of the Attorney General. By the time this communication is disclosed, the legal status of the people mentioned is still pending to be resolved by the competent judicial authority, always under the presumption of innocence contemplated by Article 29 of the Political Constitution and Article 7 of Law 906 of 2004.