How to steal land the size of a small country Part VI: the crook in a toga
by Adriaan Alsema March 16, 2020
Jorge Pretelt )Image: Colprensa)
Colombia’s former constitutional court president isn’t just any criminal; he was sentenced over land theft while already in prison for corruption.
Former magistrate Jorge Pretelt may not have made it very far in life had his father not been a Conservative Party mogul from the northern Cordoba province and had his friend not been former President Alvaro Uribe.
Thanks to his father’s fortune, Pretelt was able to study law, and thanks to his friend he was nominated to one of Colombia’s top courts in 2005.
Had he been blessed with intelligence and honesty, he could be enjoying a lofty pension by now, but he wasn’t.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/how-to-steal-land-the-size-of-a-small-country-part-vi-the-crook-in-a-toga/
= new reply since forum marked as read
in a certain part of Colombia. They were visited by a man called "El Burro" who worked for a paramilitary under the control of a family of drug war lords, the Castanos, who were shockingly vicious.
Evelio Díaz was "El Burro" and he worked for
"Monoleche" (Jesús Ignacio Roldan) who worked for the monstrous Carlos Castaño Gil.
They sent El Burro to a farm and he told the farmer he would have to sell his farm for a fantastically low price, the farmer refused, as they always did when first approached, and he was told that the boss who sent him would simply buy the property from his widow. This approacy was used thousands of times, as it seems, from reports and articles available on line starting many, many years ago.
In other words, they stole the lands, but insisted the owners of the properties in their names, and perhaps in the names of their families going back generations, turn the land over to the crime bosses who then sold it to other land owners, or politicians, or industrial or agricultural interests for insane profits.
I've seen enough articles to night under the names of the people in the origignal post to recommend more reading to anyone interested in learning more. They are in Spanish and can be given to Google Translate to be rendered in English. It will be easy to see the common thread which indicates the pattern of forcing landowners to leave their farms by merely threatening to kill them if they wouldn't go away after turning over their farms to the government-connected paramilitaries, the AUC crime bosses.
Here's a good one from 3 years ago regarding Jorge Pretelt's wife, Martha Ligia Patrón:
Prosecutor's Office closed investigation against Jorge Pretelt's wife
Judicial
Aug 24, 2017 - 4:49 PM
Judicial Writing
After more than two years of investigation, the investigating body concluded that, for now, there is no act to involve Martha Ligia Patrón with an alleged land dispossession in Urabá.
(You wouldn't want to have had suggested to the husband he do something about his monobrow. He would easily have had you killed.)
. . .
According to the official letter, " the proceedings that were being carried out against Mrs. Martha Ligia Patron were shelved . " The decision was made by the former magistrate who is currently being investigated by the Supreme Court of Justice for allegedly having received bribes to intervene in a ruling. guardianship in favor of the Fidupetrol company, while he was a magistrate. (Senate suspended Pretelt from office and left him in the hands of the Supreme Court)
According to the investigation carried out by the Prosecutor's Office, the strongest paramilitary attack in the Antioquia Urabá passed through those two properties, owned by Pretelt. According to what the Special Administrative Unit for the Management of Restitiated Lands Restitution (Uaegrtd) has been able to investigate, these lands were the military fortress where the Castaño Gil brothers installed their military and operations center. (The lawsuit for dispossession of land against Pretelt)
Since November 2015, the Land Restitution Judge of Apartadó began to receive demands from residents of the region to return to their land. In total, the magistrate received 450 requests to restore 5,000 hectares, of which are the two estates of magistrate Pretelt. (The criminal trial against magistrate Jorge Ignacio Pretelt begins)
Precisely for the acquisition of these two properties, one of 66 hectares and the other of 46 hectares, the Prosecutor's Office was investigating Martha Ligia Patrón for the crimes of forced displacement, conspiracy to commit crimes, money laundering and destruction and appropriation of protected property.
What the authorities managed to collect from the case were several testimonies from the families who were allegedly dispossessed. One of them, Reinaldo Villalba, told investigators that up to his land “a group of six people came - two had Auc badges - they told me that the boss was saying to sell him the farm, that if he did not accept they bought it from the widow ”.
More:
https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/fiscalia-archivo-investigacion-contra-la-esposa-de-jorge-pretelt-articulo-709756
