[David Trujillo]: In the previous episode, we heard how one of the unions from the Institute of Forensic Medicine denounced alleged irregularities surrounding the analysis of the evidence in the Pizano case. In the end, it turned out that the Institute’s director had, indeed, made at least one mistake: the brown stains on the towel were not blood.
But beyond the reliability of those analyses being questioned, a judge confirmed that the evidence collected by the Attorney General’s Office during the inspection of the Pizano home was not admissible in the investigation of the deaths—because the chain of custody hadn’t been respected, and they had kept the evidence longer than allowed by law.
It had been less than a month since the deaths of the Pizanos, and the sisters and their mother wanted no further involvement in the scandal it had all become. It was the top story in every newscast, and they preferred to leave things as they were—not to dig deeper. As we already know, because of all this, they agreed to let the thenAttorney General close the investigation.
[Juanita Pizano]: But it was also about keeping the peace with everyone, not causing more trouble. And… I think there was also a bit of fear. Fear of opening up a Pandora’s box—like, well, we don’t really know what happened in that investigation, and maybe we don’t want to know, because it could hurt us deeply.
[David]: They’d already been presented with the hypothesis of Jorge Enrique’s attempted suicide and Alejandro’s accidental death. It was too painful to even consider. So two weeks after the deaths, they boarded a plane to leave the country for a while.
[Juanita]: We left on November 27, and I remember being on the plane thinking, “Wow, something’s happening. Thank goodness we’re leaving.”
[David]: They chose not to pay much attention. After all, they were leaving the country. But at that same moment, on social media, people began talking about what was happening in Colombia’s Congress—where their father’s name was being mentioned.
[Jorge Enrique Robledo]: What changed in this story? What’s new? We all know: Jorge Enrique Pizano is what’s new in this story.
[David]: Three senators had organized a televised debate to explain to the country the complicated issue of Odebrecht.
[Gustavo Petro]: Today we know, thanks to Pizano and to the statement by Luis Bueno, a senior executive at Odebrecht, that Grupo Aval knew, from the very beginning, about the five acts and the five moments of bribery that I’ve described here.
[Angélica Lozano]: It’s been proven—at least by Mr. Pizano’s recordings—that attorney Néstor Humberto had full knowledge of the illicit actions being committed by members of this consortium—his client, his friends.
[David]: Néstor Humberto Martínez, the then Attorney General, was under no obligation to attend that debate. It carried no judicial implications. And though no one expected him that evening…
[Ernesto Macías]: I ask the plenary session if it wishes to declare itself in permanent session.
[Senator]: Yes, Mr. President.
[Ernesto]: You have the floor, Dr. Néstor Humberto Martínez, Attorney General of the Nation.
[David]: Martínez arrived at that debate to explain the accusations against him: his conflicts of interest, his closeness to Grupo Aval and Odebrecht, his possible omission of corruption he already knew about, and his relationship with Jorge Enrique Pizano. He was ready to put up a fight.
From Central Series and Radio Ambulante Studios, this is La Ruta del Sol.
I’m David Trujillo. Episode 6: The Debate.
[David]: The debate in Congress took place on November 27, 2018, at 3 p.m. It was broadcast live on national television during prime time.
[Jorge Robledo]: Hello, hello. My warmest greetings to the Minister of the Interior, to the President of Congress, and to everyone gathered here… (FADE)
[David]: The first to speak was Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo, at the time a member of the opposition party Polo Democrático Alternativo. Only three months earlier, the new government of Iván Duque,of the right-wing Centro Democrático party,had taken office, and along with other pro-government parties, they held a majority in Congress. The then Attorney General was known to be close to some sectors of that ruling coalition.
When Robledo stood to deliver his speech, he was wearing a yellow tie —the color of his party— and in front of him, on the podium, he placed a poster with the hashtag #RenuncieFiscal (“Resign, Attorney General”).
[Jorge Robledo]: And this will probably be the first of these debates in which we finally have all the pieces of the puzzle. Let’s say that’s what’s truly new this time, because there’s new evidence—new evidence that formally links Grupo Aval and Corficolombiana to this corruption. (FADE)
[David]: Robledo was one of the first congressmen to denounce this case in Colombia. At first, he didn’t fully understand what had happened, but he dove head-first into investigating after a statement made by the then Attorney General, Néstor Humberto Martínez, in January 2017—more than a year before the Pizano deaths.
Just two weeks earlier, the Odebrecht scandal had erupted with the publication of an investigation in the United States and Attorney General Martínez had already announced publicly that there was nothing illegal about one of the business deals the Brazilian conglomerate had in Colombia —other than Ruta del Sol II.
I spoke with former Senator Robledo for this story. This is him:
[Jorge Robledo]: What got me involved in the debate was Néstor Humberto’s behavior. Because this guy—if supposedly nothing was known yet—took very limited information, did what he did, and absolved everyone. So he closed every door. And I said, “Wait, what?” I told my staff, “Heads up, everyone dig into this.” I had a very good team at the office, you know? And we said, “No, no, there’s something shady here” as we say in Colombia. Because on what grounds does he go out there absolving everyone?
[David]: During his investigation, Robledo and his team learned that Grupo Aval was also involved in that business deal, and that the law firm of which Néstor Humberto Martínez had been a partner—and whose director was his own son—had legally advised the companies. Robledo told me he already knew who Martínez was: that he’d been active in politics for over 20 years, that he’d served as Minister of the Presidency under Juan Manuel Santos, that he was close to the vice president of that administration, and that he was a well-known commercial lawyer.
[Jorge Robledo]: He had a very successful career and ended up becoming a very important man to Luis Carlos Sarmiento. That opened the door for him to all kinds of businesses—always very controversial. He always stirred up debate and stuff because of the way he was.
[David]: Robledo also confirmed in his investigation that Martínez had been hired as a consulting attorney for Ruta del Sol II.
[Jorge Robledo]: That really caught my attention. I thought, wait,this guy handles deals worth astronomical sums, and he resigns to become Attorney General? I’m just speculating here, but one has to wonder if they’re putting in a “pocket Attorney General” for Luis Carlos Sarmiento. It’s obvious that the people in that business, Odebrecht on one side and Sarmiento on the other,were deeply concerned about how things would unfold, especially with the Americans involved, saying, “Someone’s head has to roll.”
[David]: For Robledo, it was crystal clear that Attorney General Martínez could not be investigating the business dealings of his former boss—deals he had participated in as a lawyer.
That’s why, from the very moment he began debating the corruption of Odebrecht and Grupo Aval at the Senate, he also criticized what Martínez was doing—or, rather, not doing—from the General Attorney’s Office. And he always demanded the same thing: that Martínez resign. For Robledo, it wasn’t enough for him to merely recuse himself from the specific case.
After speaking about it in the media for over a year and after two Senate debates, came the deaths of the Pizanos and Noticias Uno’s revelation of the recording that implicated the Attorney General. The scandal, as we know, became huge. Robledo was shocked.
[Jorge Robledo]: Of course—totally shocked, like every Colombian. What Pizano did is what made the whole thing blow up, because suddenly things became much more serious. The things Néstor Humberto said in those recordings were deeply incriminating.
[David]: That’s why, along with two other senators, he decided to call for this November 27 debate to explain to the country what was happening. It wouldn’t be easy—the odds were against them. As we said, the ruling coalition held the majority, and Attorney General Martínez was close to some of those factions.
Even so, the opposition saw this moment as the right one to capture public attention—especially because, as Robledo said, there was a new ingredient in the scandal: everything Jorge Enrique Pizano had exposed.
[Jorge Robledo]: The corruption in Ruta del Sol wasn’t exposed by Néstor Humberto—it was exposed by Pizano. Despite Néstor Humberto and all of Grupo Aval standing in his way—and Odebrecht standing in his way. The Attorney General’s Office barely managed, based on those investigations, to say, “Well, other than theft, there were also bribes.” But that isn’t really thanks to Attorney General Martínez. He covered up everything about Ruta del Sol—that’s clear. There’s more than enough proof of it.
[David]: And in the end, after speaking for nearly an hour, Robledo once again demanded the same thing of Martínez: that he resign, and that a new shortlist be sent to the Supreme Court of Justice to appoint a new Attorney General.
[Jorge Robledo]: And let’s hope that this next Attorney General won’t have the tricks, the connections, or the cunning of Martínez Neira. It’ll be up to all of us, Colombians united. If we mobilize as we should, we can start to defeat the corruption that has taken hold of Colombia. Thank you very much.
[David]: The next speaker was Gustavo Petro —Colombia’s current president— who at the time was a senator for the Colombia Humana party.
[Gustavo Petro]: I’ll begin the debate with this chart, which I hope can be shown on the television screen.
[David]: It was hard to grasp at first glance, but it was essentially made up of color-coded tables with notes on what was known up to that point about the Odebrecht case in Colombia. There were figures on the bribes, and names of people and companies involved. It was an attempt to visually explain the whole web of the case.
[Gustavo Petro]: And from here you can see the entire picture, let’s say, of what’s known up to now about the Odebrecht/Sarmiento issue and its connections with the State.
[David]: But although he explained it in detail during his one-hour speech, Petro clarified that that picture was incomplete. Not even with Jorge Enrique Pizano and the irregular contracts he found which were the newest link in this chain of events, did we have the full picture.
[Gustavo Petro]: And the one who might know everything that happened—Odebrecht—won’t say it, won’t confess it. That’s why this chart represents, for now, all that we have.
[David]: At the end of his speech, Petro—unlike Robledo—didn’t demand that Attorney General Martínez resign. Instead, he asked the Supreme Court to appoint what is known as an ad hoc prosecutor. It was a legal strategy to select someone who would be exclusively dedicated to investigating a case in which the Attorney General clearly had conflicts of interest—like this one, the Odebrecht corruption case.
[Gustavo Petro]: So that we no longer have just political oversight like this, but a serious judicial investigation that would lead to the individuals responsible for receiving the bribes, since we do know who paid for them in Colombia. Thank you, Mr. President. Very kind.
[David]: At that moment, the television broadcast of the debate was interrupted for a national address by President Duque to speak about the first 111 days of his administration. The senators agreed to pause the debate until the live broadcast could resume.
[David]: About twenty minutes later, the national broadcast returned to the congressional debate.
[Ernesto Macías]: Senators, thank you for keeping quiet…
[David]: Then it was Senator Angélica Lozano’s turn, from the Alianza Verde party.
[Ernesto]: Senator Angélica Lozano has the floor.
[Angélica Lozano]: Thank you, Mr. President. My speech, on behalf of the Alianza Verde party, is titled: Who does the crime, does the time in Colombia?
[David]: Lozano said that all over this Odebrecht case there was what she called a very complex institutional labyrinth that made it difficult to reach justice, to reach the truth, and to ensure public money wasn’t lost.
[Angélica Lozano]: The justice system is upside down because there’s a hot potato being tossed from side to side, and nothing gets clarified.
[David]: According to Lozano, one of the strongest obstacles in that institutional labyrinth was the Attorney General. The conflicts of interest that have been mentioned so many times.
[Angélica Lozano]: Néstor Humberto knew what he was going to the Attorney General’s Office to do: to cover up, to block, to protect, to guarantee impunity for the richest man in Colombia, his boss or his friend, a very close relationship, in addition to his political entourage.
[David]: And in an unexpected moment, nearly three hours into the debate, the chamber began to stir.
[Angélica Lozano]: The bell, Mr. President.
[David]: Lozano had to pause her address
[Ernesto]: Silence, please.
[David]: Lozano took a sip of water and greeted the newcomer who sat right in front of her.
[Angélica Lozano]: Welcome, Mr. Attorney General.
[David]: Martínez had arrived, unexpectedly, at the Senate plenary. No one was expecting him. Not even Senator Robledo, who had so many times told him to come.
[Jorge Robledo]: I had invited him to all the debates—he always dodged them. And this time he showed up. So I thought, well, it’s great that he came. I was actually very pleased, because debates in Colombia follow a certain format: those who called the debate get to close it.
[David]: Martínez would only speak once. Robledo and his colleagues would listen to everything he said and then be able to respond to him right there.
A break, and we’ll be right back.
We’re back on La Ruta del Sol.
With Néstor Humberto Martínez now seated before her, Senator Lozano continued, saying that in other countries the institutional labyrinth had been overcome and justice had reached the highest levels of power. And to achieve the same in Colombia, she proposed that the government allow a special international mission to resolve the Odebrecht case.
[Angélica Lozano]: A special UN mission, directly from the United Nations,with its head appointed by the UN Secretary-General. Special in nature. It’s temporary. A temporary measure. Two years. that could be extended for another two. What is its role? And pay attention to the verbs: to support, to support, and to collaborate in the technical and scientific investigation of the Odebrecht case.
[David]: At the end of her speech, Lozano addressed Martínez directly.
[Angélica Lozano]: Mr. Attorney General: resign. If you do the crime, you do the time. And you must pay.
[David]: After an intervention by the then Minister of the Interior, Martínez stood up from his seat and walked to the podium. He carefully arranged the pages of the speech he was about to read and switched glasses.
[Ernesto]: You have the floor, Dr. Néstor Humberto Martínez, Attorney General of the Nation.
[Néstor Humberto]: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Honorable senators, honorable senators who have called the debate.
[David]: He said that, from the outset, he wanted to make something clear: as we’ve mentioned, it was very unusual for an Attorney General to appear there. The law didn’t require it. But he had decided to attend as a citizen.
[Néstor Humberto]: And that’s why I have to come: for my honor, for the defense of my moral integrity, out of respect for the thousands of Colombians who have expressed their solidarity during these two infamous weeks… (FADE)
[David]: Martínez began defending himself from the attacks the senators had launched during their speeches—especially what Robledo had said.
[Néstor Humberto]: Because Senator Robledo now acts as inquisitor and strips any citizen of his morals, driven by the political motives that inspire him.
[David]: And he was prepared to talk about the recordings that so deeply incriminated him.
[Néstor Humberto]: Because some recordings were made public. Recordings made by my lifelong friend, Jorge Enrique Pizano, whom I welcomed into the intimate friendship of my home and his entire family.
[David]: The Pizano family didn’t watch the debate. As we said, they were on a flight leaving the country at that very moment. But Martínez’s claim of the friendship between them was something they would later have to hear many times.
[Carolina]: What made me the angriest was hearing Néstor Humberto say he was our friend, that he was a friend. He wasn’t. For me, he was the father of one of Alejandro’s friends. But to say he was my dad’s close friend? No. I remember well, I think it was my dad’s fiftieth birthday, yes 50, —he threw a huge party at home, his true friends were there, and I never saw Néstor Humberto in those celebrations, not even at my brother’s wedding. A friend is someone who’s there. A friend is someone who, in those five years, would’ve sent a direct message. Everything was always through his son.
[David]: Yet Martínez kept insisting on that supposed closeness with Jorge Enrique.
[Néstor Humberto]: And he came to my law firm as a personal friend, asking me to help ensure his information reached the president of the organization, Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo. A task that I fulfilled.
[Juanita]: That conversation my dad recorded—maybe Néstor Humberto thought it took place within the bounds of friendship. But when you listen to it now, it’s clear they’re not friends, and it’s clear Néstor Humberto doesn’t care about my dad’s well-being.
[David]: On the contrary, Martínez seemed to believe that he had been so important to Jorge Enrique Pizano that Pizano was still watching over his wellbeing, even after death. He invoked him during his speech.
[Néstor Humberto]: Tonight, Jorge Enrique comes to the Senate chamber to take a stand—against slander, against insult, against lies, against falsehood.
[David]: He returned to the same argument he’d made in his interview with Caracol News: that when Jorge Enrique recorded their conversations, he hadn’t yet realized that what he’d uncovered amounted to bribery. Martínez read aloud a transcript of Pizano’s statement to an authority, in which Pizano said precisely that—he knew the contracts were odd, but he wasn’t sure they involved crimes.
[Néstor Humberto]: And I was supposed to know, back in 2015? Because I am the clairvoyant of the Colombian people? No. He insisted he didn’t know they were crimes.
[David]: After repeating in his speech that he had known of no crimes, Martínez moved on to defend how the Prosecutor’s Office handled the evidence collected during the inspection of the Pizano house.
[Néstor Humberto]: They say we went after the computers and hard drives. Where do they get such lies? It was the family—it was the family who handed over those pieces of evidence so we could investigate matters of interest from the victims’ standpoint.
[David]: But remember, according to Jorge Enrique’s daughters, during that inspection they had clearly said this:
[Carolina]: I remember he said: they’re not going to take anything that isn’t related to the death. He was clearly referring to not taking documents. But they did take the hard drives and they took the security-camera recordings.
[David]: In his speech, Martínez went on talking about the family.
[Néstor Humberto]: Even though the family has stated twice, “We fully trust the Office of the Attorney General.” Oh, how it pains them to read that. How it bothers them that the family trusts the Office of the Attorney General.
[David]: But, as we’ve told before, for the daughters, in hindsight ,those statements supporting the Prosecutor’s Office resulted from being manipulated during the hardest moment of their lives.
[Carolina]: Of course, we fell completely for that manipulation. It was like yes, do what you have to do. Yes, do what you have to do. We couldn’t think straight. And it’s something that people don’t understand, and it’s how difficult it is to try to think with clarity in those moments.
[David]: Martínez had been speaking for over an hour. Robledo listened from his seat, seemingly uncomfortable.
[Jorge Enrique Robledo]: He defended himself in his typical style, which is to deny reality and present you as the liar, right?. So I’d hit him with A, B, C, and he’d respond with X, Y, Z. Throwing in some underhanded and dirty jabs. That cynicism, right? And the whole Congress—most of it—was on his side, applauding him, even. Liberals, conservatives, everyone. Because he’s part of the pinnacle of the Colombian establishment, friends with all those congressmen.
[Néstor Humberto]: Go to the Attorney General’s Office, sir! File a petition…Mister.
[David]: At one point, Senator Robledo even shouted at Martínez, calling him a fraud.
[Ernesto Macías]: I ask you, please…
[Néstor Humberto]: While you…
[Ernesto Macías]: Senator Robledo, please allow the debate to continue…
[Néstor Humberto]: For God’s sake.
[David]: But Martínez went on with his speech. And after nearly an hour and a half of speaking, he reached the most striking part of his address. That was when he shifted from defending himself to attacking his opponents—laying out what he called a conspiracy. Not just any conspiracy.
[Néstor Humberto]: The most shameful conspiracy process against Colombian justice in history began.
[David]: A conspiracy of which he said he was a direct victim. He pointed fingers at senators, journalists, other state officials, and servants of international organizations—even U.S. authorities. A conspiracy that, according to him, achieved one specific thing.
[Néstor Humberto]: Before he died, Jorge Enrique Pizano was poisoned—poisoned with hatred toward the person of the Attorney General of the Nation. And from the time when Jorge Enrique Pizano and I were close friends, I became his executioner.
[David]: A break, and we’ll be right back.
We’re back on La Ruta del Sol.
[David]: In Congress, Martínez continued explaining the alleged conspiracy. According to him, one of the people involved was journalist María Jimena Duzán—whom we’ve already heard in other episodes. As we know, María Jimena had been publishing about corruption in Ruta del Sol for some time and had revealed, after the Pizanos’ deaths, that Jorge Enrique had been her source.
[David]: Martínez mentioned her by name in his speech.
[María Jimena Duzán]: According to Néstor Humberto, I was the key piece—the great mastermind of a plot to destroy justice. An international plot to bring down justice in Colombia.
[David]: And, according to Martínez, to destroy justice in Colombia María Jimena had help from another person. His name is Luis Fernando Andrade. Andrade had been the head of the National Infrastructure Agency—the ANI—the state entity that plans, hires , and executes that type of major infrastructure projects. He was also one of María Jimena’s sources in her investigation.
Later we’ll talk more about Andrade and the role he played in all this. or now I mention him because Martínez also referred to him in his speech—saying something that startled María Jimena, who was watching live on TV.
[María Jimena]: We realized, from Néstor Humberto’s speech, that he had privileged information—information only Jorge Enrique Pizano could have had through the chats he exchanged with me. And those chats came up there, mentioned by the Attorney General himself, Néstor Humberto Martínez.
[Néstor Humberto]: The journalist conveyed to Jorge Enrique Pizano a message from Andrade: You have to react in time, –says Andrade–. Don’t let them have the upper hand, because otherwise the Prosecutor will do to you what he did to me—persecute you. Persecute you! In other words, she incited him to strike at the Attorney General.
[David]: María Jimena couldn’t believe that the Attorney General was sharing transcripts of her private conversations on live television. She said she didn’t know how those private chats—between a journalist and her source—had been used, but she knew exactly how it made her feel.
[María Jimena]: Of course I felt fear. I thought, who knows how they’re using the chats I had with Jorge Enrique?
[David]: But she wasn’t the only journalist Martínez mentioned that day.
[Iván Serrano]: He mentioned me too.
[David]: Iván Serrano—the Noticias Uno journalist to whom Jorge Enrique gave the interview that was published two weeks earlier, right after his death.
Martínez also accused Iván of being part of that conspiracy.
[Iván]: He said there was a collusion to poison Jorge Enrique, and other nonsense. Martínez Neira was very well informed about what the journalists and Jorge Enrique were doing.
[David]: Martínez said that Iván Serrano and the director of the newscast had betrayed Jorge Enrique—apparently he had wanted the piece to air before he died.
[Néstor Humberto]: It has come to light that Mr. Iván Serrano, journalist of Noticias Uno, had agreed to air the recorded interview with Jorge Enrique on the holiday of Monday, November 5, three days before his death. That means the story had been made to run three days earlier, not afterward as a testament.
[David]: But according to Martínez, the director of the newscast had chosen to air another story that day, and the Pizano piece came out a week later.
[Néstor Humberto]: After knocking on many journalists’ doors, many, he chose to go through Noticias Uno, and they didn’t run the story they’d promised. He died in despair. They had sold him the idea that Néstor Humberto would crush him judicially. And it didn’t work out because they offered him the alternatives ofAmerican justice and a TV news outlet,and he fell into total depression. Used and manipulated by the conspirators.
[David]: Martínez was implying that Iván and the news outlet had deepened Jorge Enrique’s depression, which would ultimately lead to his death.
[Iván]: I felt truly intimidated when Martínez Neira went to Congress and implied he had knowledge—taken out of context and in bad faith—of conversations I’d had with him.
[David]: Conversations he’d had with Jorge Enrique. Conversation, again, between a journalist and his source.
[Iván]: And they were used maliciously, as he used them in Congress, in an intimidating way. And I wondered: how did he even know?
[David]: Iván had to publish those chats to clarify the issue and show that in that conversation they hadn’t spoken about the recordings, but about his frustration with the then Inspector General for having lied publicly when he said that Jorge Enrique was a direct employee of Odebrecht.
[Iván]: In that message exchange there’s no mention of the news director, as you can see on screen, nor any reference to the interview or to the recordings that had been sealed since August at Pizano’s request. The suggestion by Attorney General Néstor Humberto Martínez that this newsroom bore any blame for the engineer’s death is, at the very least, irresponsible.
[Iván]: I felt intimidated. At that time, I even noticed odd things happening around my home, because with Martínez Neira we discovered just how powerful the Attorney General’s Office is. In Colombia, no one can say anything to the Attorney General. They can do whatever they want, and they’re judged only by the House’s Accusations Commission.
[David]: A commission made up not of judges but of congressmen that is also charged with investigating and accusing presidents—and that almost always ends up acquitting those it investigates.
[Néstor Humberto]: I have come to the Congress of the Republic, to the Senate of Colombians.
[David]: After speaking for almost two hours, insisting that he wouldn’t yield to those who supposedly wanted to set Colombian justice on fire, Martínez concluded.
[Néstor Humberto]: Today, the whole story is known—not the manipulated version of the conspirators. Thank you, Colombia. Thank you, honorable Senate of the Republic.
[David]: Amid the applause of Martínez’s supporters, Senators Robledo, Petro, and Lozano were ready to confront everything he’d said, his accusations, and to deliver their conclusions. Those were the rules.
Robledo was satisfied.
[Jorge Robledo]: I thought I might bring him down, but also, you know they don’t fall overnight, right? Still, I think, up to the point we reached, the country was shaken. And there are facts there, glaring facts that no one can deny in any way. And the political impact was huge. In that sense, I’m satisfied with everything we did.
[David]: But the Senate president began giving the floor to senators from the Centro Democrático, his party, the ruling party, which additionally , as we explained, was politically aligned with the then Attorney General.
[Jorge Robledo]: And then something happened that no one had counted on. Paloma Valencia, a senator from Centro Democrático, cunningly, yes cunningly, because it was irrelevant to the topic. Breaking all normal procedures in the Senate, she played that now-famous video, the one with the bag…
[David]: It was a secretly recorded video from 2005. You couldn’t really hear what was being said, but you could see Gustavo Petro—one of the senators who had organized the debate and, at the time, the strongest opposition candidate for the next election—with a former aide of his, in a very confusing situation involving cash and a well-known architect.
[Jorge Robledo]: And on top, it was a black plastic bag, ominous, stuffed with money and all.
[David]: Although the video never proved any illegal act—and Petro himself had warned beforehand that it would be released—it was extremely controversial and ended up diverting all attention away from the debate.
[Jorge Robledo]: It exploded like an atomic bomb, and the debate couldn’t go on, they ended up adjourning it.
[David]: Without him or the other two senators having a chance to respond to Martínez.
[Jorge Robledo]: So Néstor Humberto ended up closing the debate. Completely calculated. That’s not how it’s done. It was clearly orchestrated to protect this guy. Because that same accusation could’ve been made the next day if she was really so interested in doing it.
[David]: With that abrupt end to the debate, many explanations from then Attorney General Martínez were left pending, about the supposed international conspiracy, but also about how he had gained access to all those conversations of Jorge Enrique’s, and how he had come to know even about private meetings and phone calls.
In the next episode…
[Luis Fernando Andrade]: My perception at the time,and it remains my perception today, is that the Prosecutor’s Office made a decision that I had to be convicted as the scapegoat. I believe that was, in large part, to avoid investigating the people who truly should have been investigated.
[Teresa Chevres]: We did a lot of writing things down,like on a pad of paper, writing things,and we even went so far as to make a little fire and burn the papers. Because, well, given my age, I remember the Watergate era, when they even checked people’s trash. And yes, I was paranoid. So yes, burn everything too.
[David]: The then–Attorney General Martínez pointed to a very important figure in this story—and in that of Jorge Enrique Pizano—as the great conspirator against Colombian justice.
Credits
The reporting and production of this episode were done by me, David Trujillo. The lead editor is Camila Segura, with additional editing by Daniel Alarcón, Silvia Viñas, and Eliezer Budasoff. Eliezer is the project manager. Fact-checking is by Bruno Scelza and Sergio Sebastián Retavisca. Camilo Vallejo did the legal review. Sound design and mixing are by Martín Cruz, with original music by Andrés Nusser. The series’ graphics and art direction are by Diego Corzo.
Product development for La Ruta del Sol was led by Natalia Ramírez. Digital production was done by Nelson Rauda and Óscar Luna, with support from Lina Rincón and Samantha Proaño from Radio Ambulante Studios’ audience team.
La Ruta del Sol was recorded at Fiona Records.
At iHeart, the executive producers are Arlene Santana and Leo Gomez.
We want to thank FLIP for their valuable support in the legal review of this production and their advisory on security matters.
Carolina Guerrero is the executive producer of Central and the CEO of Radio Ambulante Studios.
You can follow us on social media as central podcast RA and subscribe to our email newsletter at centralpodcast.audio.
I’m David Trujillo. Thanks for listening.