[David]: January 11, 2019. Two months had passed since the deaths of the Pizanos, and the scandal surrounding them had only kept growing. The outrage was so intense that, in the streets people were now demanding the head of the then Attorney General.
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[Protests]: The Attorney General is going to burn, the Attorney General is going to burn, the Attorney General is going to burn.
[Juan Camilo Merlano]: In different cities across the country, demonstrations were held against the Attorney General of the Nation, Néstor Humberto Martínez.
[Protests]: Attorney General, thug, paramilitary, and murderer.
[Protests]: Take to the streets to bring down the corrupt Attorney General.
[Protests]: Hehehe, dude, this is a bribe. Hehehe, dude, this is a bribe.
[Wilson Moreno]: The most symbolic moment of the sit-in at the bunker, in Bogotá, was when protesters burned the flag of the Attorney General’s Office. At least 2,000 people arrived at the main headquarters of the prosecuting authority demanding the resignation of Néstor Humberto Martínez.
[David]: A month earlier, the Supreme Court had finally chosen an ad hoc prosecutor—that is, a prosecutor appointed specifically for the Odebrecht case. But for some, that decision was not enough, because out of the dozens of lines of investigation in this case, this new prosecutor took on only three, the same ones from which the then Attorney General had recused himself due to conflicts of interest.
But people were demanding that Martínez step aside entirely from the institution, not just from three lines of investigation. Two organizations, DeJusticia and the Colombian Commission of Jurists, even called for his election as Attorney General to be annulled because, according to them, the Supreme Court had chosen him without knowing about his possible conflicts of interest. But their lawsuit was ultimately rejected because it was filed too late, almost three years after the election.
Two weeks after the protests, Martínez held a press conference to announce something very important.
[Néstor Humberto Martínez]: Good morning. The Attorney General’s Office of the Nation wishes today to inform the country, for reasons of general interest, of the final results of the investigation that began in connection with the death of Dr. Alejandro Pizano Ponce de León.
[David]: The Pizano family already knew where this was headed; they had already accepted that the Attorney General’s Office would close the investigation into Alejandro’s death. But this was the first time the country was being informed about the process.
Martínez began by talking about the flavored water bottle and said that it had been established that Jorge Enrique always had it in his possession. The evidence was a video from a month before his death showing him purchasing similar bottles at a supermarket.
[Néstor Humberto]: The camera shows Dr. Pizano passing through the checkout line and confirms the type of beverage he bought.
[David]: As we already recounted in previous episodes, he also mentioned that Jorge Enrique’s DNA was found on the mouth of the bottle, and he revealed that the housemaid said that the day before the death…
[Néstor Humberto]: She saw him approach the kitchen and take a wooden spoon out from one of the drawers while carrying a bottle of water in his hand. According to the statement, Mr. Pizano Callejas took both objects to a bathroom on the second floor and locked himself in there for several minutes. In that same bathroom, days later, a container of potassium cyanide was found. In addition, the Attorney General’s Office obtained various testimonies from third parties and from his own psychiatrist, indicating that on several occasions Dr. Jorge Enrique Pizano stated, at different times and places, that one option in his life journey was the consumption of a toxin.
[David]: Martínez also spoke about the to-do list that was on Jorge Enrique’s desk and said that the same housemaid had seen it on the day of his death.
[Néstor Humberto]: And in the statement she gave to the Attorney General’s Office, she said that while doing her cleaning chores that morning, she saw the flavored water bottle on Dr. Jorge Enrique Pizano’s desk and approached to pick it up. She recounts in her testimony that the cap was slightly loose and that she herself tightened it.
[David]: Martínez asserted that no one entered the house again between November 9 and 11—Jorge Enrique, remember, died on the 8th—and that the bottle remained there until the family found it the day Alejandro died. He then said that, based on testimonies and documentary and technical evidence, the Attorney General’s Office had made a decision regarding the case.
[Néstor Humberto]: Mr. Pizano died in an accidental manner after drinking the beverage that was on his father’s desk. In this way, from a judicial standpoint, this investigation is concluded. The case of the profoundly painful death of Alejandro Pizano Ponce de León is hereby closed.
[David]: And since the report for Jorge Enrique’s autopsy, conducted by a private expert at the hospital, concluded that his death was of natural causes, there was nothing else to investigate.
[Néstor Humberto]: In making public this documentation and the decision taken by the Attorney General’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office asks the national public opinion—and of course the international community—for special respect for the memory of Jorge Enrique and Alejandro Pizano. And in the most respectful manner, we ask everyone not to revictimize their family. Peace upon the graves of Jorge Enrique Pizano and Alejandro Pizano. Thank you very much.
[David]: Although the Pizano case was closed, Martínez continued to be caught up in media storms. And not only because of this case, but also due to others related to bribery and the manipulation of judicial proceedings. But there was one in particular, too complex to explain in detail here, which involved a clash between the Attorney General’s Office and the transitional justice system over the case of a former leader of the FARC guerrillas. That happened almost three years after Martínez’s term as Attorney General began, and it was because of this case that he came out to issue the following statement.
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[Néstor Humberto]: My conscience and my devotion to the rule of law do not allow it. Therefore, I have submitted my irrevocable resignation from the position of Attorney General of the Nation.
[David]: A few days later, the ad hoc prosecutor who had been appointed to handle three lines of investigation in the Odebrecht case submitted his final report to the Supreme Court. I contacted that prosecutor, Leonardo Espinosa, to talk about his findings, but he did not respond.
[David]: In his report, which resulted from a five-month investigation, he said that he had found, among other things, that the Attorney General’s Office did not bring significant charges against certain key figures in the Odebrecht corruption scheme; that in some cases several crimes they had already been charged with were dropped; and that arrest warrants against the leaders of Odebrecht in Colombia were not properly recorded, allowing them to leave the country without any problem. He also requested that two other prosecutors who had been in charge of the case be investigated for these irregularities.
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[María Camila Orozco]: The outgoing ad hoc prosecutor also said that he referred to this investigation as an iceberg, and that he only managed to reach a very small percentage of the Odebrecht investigation within those three lines of inquiry.
[Silvia Charry]: And one final detail: the outgoing ad hoc prosecutor, Leonardo Espinosa, says that at the time he informed the Attorney General —now former Attorney General—Néstor Humberto Martínez of all these irregularities, but that he never received a response.
[David]: After his resignation, Martínez stepped away from the public sector and returned to working with his clients and practicing commercial law. He began writing a weekly opinion column in El Tiempo, the newspaper owned by Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo—the same one that had chosen him as Person of the Year in 2017. He also published a book criticizing the peace process with the FARC. He very rarely discussed the Pizano case again, until he spoke with us…
[Néstor Humberto]: As I told you in one of the emails we exchanged, I had decided a long time ago not to speak about these issues again. Because I think it’s better to let history and justice evolve. But it struck me as a nice opportunity to look for a different outlet—one that knows how to do radio differently and isn’t steeped in the political conflicts we’re living through in Colombia today, which are really messed up.
[David]: From Central Series and Radio Ambulante Studios, this is La Ruta del Sol.
I’m David Trujillo. Episode 9: The Attorney General.
In early September 2025, Néstor Humberto Martínez agreed to give us an interview. As he already said, he had gone years without speaking about the Pizano case.
[Néstor Humberto]: And I have kept a precise and methodical silence. But of course, I’ve been gathering a lot of information, right? I’ve acquired a lot of information. There is nothing opinion-based here.
[David]: We met in a recording studio in Bogotá in late September. His bodyguards arrived first to inspect the place, and once they confirmed everything was fine, Martínez arrived. He entered the studio alone, sat down in front of one of the microphones, and placed a briefcase full of documents on the chair next to him. With me was Daniel Alarcón, the executive producer of Radio Ambulante Studios and one of the editors of this series. Before continuing, be aware that the interview lasted about three hours, and you can listen to it in its entirety on our website, centralpodcast.audio.
[David]: That afternoon when we interviewed him, Daniel started with the questions:
[Daniel Alarcón]: I personally… I was very curious to understand why… I mean, what was your goal with this conversation? Because it would have been very easy to ignore the email or say no thanks…
[Néstor Humberto]: Why did I do it?
[Daniel]: Yes.
[Néstor Humberto]: Because look, when this was news in Colombia, it was very contaminated by political interests. The left wanted to make me pay for my positions on the peace process. And the entire left mobilized, along with a segment of society… I think I carried out the biggest anti-corruption program that has ever been done in Colombia, a program called Bolsillos de Cristal, dealing with very sensitive cases. I mean, that program was wonderful—it touched an entire layer of corruption.
[David]: As we had already mentioned in another episode, Bolsillos de Cristal was perhaps the most emblematic program of his tenure as Attorney General, and with it he promised to fight corruption. When he resigned, in May 2019, Martínez announced that thanks to that plan there were 3,000 people charged in cases involving billions of dollars. But critics of that program insist that the figure is not at all clear because it’s not known what happened to those 3,000 people—whether they were convicted, whether they went to prison, or if they were innocent. Some even said that the numbers were inflated.
But Martínez assured us that many of those people did end up in prison as a result of his fight against corruption, and that they themselves have been responsible for publicly discrediting him. And although he said that when he was Attorney General it was very difficult to debate with his critics, he was now willing to answer questions.
[Néstor Humberto]: And in that sense, well, it’s always better to show up when programs and things like this happen. Why? Did you find it unusual that I agreed?
[David]: Well, after so many years, yes, it did seem curious to me that you would agree—and that you would agree to give us an interview.
[Néstor Humberto]: But the thing is, if there are people who talk, who are still discussing the subject, well then they have some interest. Always– I learned that in life, who speaks has an interest. So I also have my interest, and it is to tell a documented story, right? So that public opinion can form its own judgment.
[David]: Almost fifteen minutes in—after introductions and after talking a bit about his background and what he currently does—we arrived at the topic that matters for this story.
And getting a bit more into the issue that brings us together today, we would like to know how you met Jorge Enrique Pizano. How did that relationship begin?
[Néstor Humberto]: Jorge Enrique was the father of one of my son Humberto’s best friends. In fact, at the Gimnasio Moderno, they were friends from first grade. And Jorge Enrique and I accompanied them throughout their adolescence. Later they graduated. Each went on with his professional life. Alejandro became an architect. My son Humberto became an economist. But they remained great friends, and because of that friendship I came to know a lot about Jorge Enrique’s personal life—he had ups and downs, he would leave positions, he had some professional gaps. And his son Alejandro would always tell my son Humberto: “Man, my dad is out of work; it would be good if there were some way to help him.” And I was able to help him a few times in his life.
[David]: He says he helped him, for example, resolve a very complicated corruption case when he worked at a company related to water services, and that he even helped him get the position as general manager of the Bogotá Aqueduct. After that, they grew apart for a while.
[Néstor Humberto]: And then, well, I stopped seeing him because of my positions and I began working with the government and up to that point we were… until all these Odebrecht issues came along in which he became involved.
[David]: But did you know when he started working with Corficolombiana? And with the Ruta del Sol?
[Néstor Humberto]: No, I did not know about that. At that time, for that position, I was not involved.
[David]: From there, we moved on to trying to understand Martínez’s relationship with Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo, the owner of Grupo Aval.
[David]: Since when were you working with Luis Carlos Sarmiento, or what was your relationship with him like?
[Néstor Humberto]: At a certain point, I was the leading advisor in banking law in Colombia. I advised Grupo Aval, Grupo Social; I advised Citibank in Colombia; I advised Grupo Colpatria—very important, a client of mine. I also advised Grupo Davivienda.
[David]: And were you specifically hired as an advisor on the Ruta del Sol project at any point?
[Néstor Humberto]: Never. And that is very interesting, because part of the unfounded claims that have been made is that I was the advisor and that from day one I knew everything about Ruta del Sol, about the consortium. Never. The Ruta del Sol was awarded in 2009, and the lawyer for the Ruta del Sol Consortium was the former Inspector General, Carlos Gustavo Arrieta. I had nothing to do with that public bidding process. So what they pin on me—that no, that I knew everything from day one—is a lie.
[David]: He said that it was not from day one, but he did confirm to us that he did advise the Ruta del Sol II consortium. It is known that this was in at least three matters. They are complex legal mechanisms, but I will mention them anyway. One was a legal stability agreement that was signed in 2012. It later became known that this stability agreement was secured through bribes, although Martínez has always said that he knew nothing about that. That same year, he also gave them a legal opinion for the addition of a section to that highway. And four years later, in 2016, he drafted the settlement agreement through which Grupo Aval and Odebrecht renounced mutual claims. That contract—the one we talked about in previous episodes—was the one revealed by journalist María Jimena Duzán.
[David]: Martínez told us that for the legal opinion on the additional section, he was hired by the consortium at the request of Grupo Aval, not Odebrecht.
[Néstor Humberto]: The consortium, not Odebrecht, because I was advising Grupo Aval. I didn’t know the Brazilians; it was because I knew Grupo Aval.
[David]: After this interview, when we were fact-checking the information, we found that legal opinion. Journalist Iván Serrano had already published it, and it was addressed directly to Eder Paolo Ferracuti, the president of the consortium, who was from Odebrecht. Ferracuti was later investigated by the Colombian authorities and sanctioned by the Inspector General’s Office for his participation in the Brazilian multinational’s corruption scheme.
[David]: After almost forty minutes of conversation, we moved on to the topic of the meetings in which Jorge Enrique showed him what he had found.
And now, moving a bit toward 2015: why does Jorge Enrique Pizano go to you and have these well-known meetings, and seek you out to tell you what he had discovered?
[Néstor Humberto]: That is very interesting. First, I’ve already told you that Jorge Enrique and I built a very beautiful friendship.
Unfortunately, today that friendship is even disavowed, despite the fact that I helped him so many times in his professional life and that my son and Jorge Enrique’s son built a friendship that went beyond closeness—they were truly like brothers, completely like brothers. Well, in 2015, when I left the Ministry of the Presidency, he sought me out. I had already returned to my private life. I went back to my office and went to take a break in Spain. And while I was in Spain, he called me and said: “Hey, I urgently need you because the Brazilians are stealing from Dr. Sarmiento.” The version Jorge Enrique gave me was that they were stealing from him and that he had some evidence and wanted to show it to me because he had tried to use the regular channels and no one was paying attention to him.
[David]: Martínez said that he asked Sarmiento Angulo for authorization to meet with Jorge Enrique and receive the documents. As we already know, they met twice.
[Néstor Humberto]: And so, at that meeting on August 19, 2015, he began to tell me what was going on. It’s a shame he only recorded audio and not video. It would have been extremely interesting because the situation was terrible.
[Daniel]: If you could take us back to that scene so we can understand… I’d like to see what the video would show that the audio doesn’t capture.
[Néstor Humberto]: Oh, because those were very theatrical situations. We were talking… you listen to that audio and you think, wow, those conversations. It’s also a bit my style of speech—very colloquial with him. I would stand up and say: “Dude, but this is… I mean, say it, is it true? Yes or no, that this is a bribe. Say it—this must be a bribe, right?” I would stand up and sort of shout and act it out, and Jorge Enrique never got up from his chair. I remember that. And he would say, “Man, well, I really don’t know.” His interest was for Dr. Sarmiento to see the papers and for the case to be investigated.
[David]: And in that meeting, with what he was talking about and what he was showing you, what were you able to see, or what could you infer?
[Néstor Humberto]: Well, I think it’s best summed up in the phrase that was recorded: “We’re in trouble.” We didn’t know whether this was corruption abroad, corruption in Colombia, whether these were paramilitaries or… because it could have been an unlawful levy, that they were demanding money, or it could be that they were simply stealing, just stealing the company’s money. That was really my thinking.
[David]: In the second meeting, which took place a few days later, we already know that Martínez read out a list of crimes prepared by a criminal defense lawyer. We wanted to ask him specifically about that.
And if you’ll allow me, I’m going to play an audio clip that you yourself already mentioned. And I’m going to turn up the volume.
[Néstor Humberto]: Bribes, money laundering, falsification of private documents, disloyal administration, breach of trust, fraud, aggravated theft by trust, embezzlement by appropriation.
[David]: So there you are, reading the opinion of the criminal lawyer. At that point, did you already have clarity about what was actually going on?
[Néstor Humberto]: No. What the criminal lawyer says is: based on the information you give me, these are the crimes. But if you notice, some crimes contradict others. In other words, when you say, for example, fraud, you can’t talk about corruption, because it’s either bribery or fraud.
[David]: That is Martínez’s interpretation, because crimes may or may not coincide depending on the full picture of the facts being analyzed.
[Néstor Humberto]: So this is an inventory of crimes. The report the lawyer ends with says: in order to be able to specify and know how to proceed, a forensic audit of all these documents must be carried out, and only then can it truly be concluded what this is. That’s what the lawyer’s opinion says, and that was ultimately done. I speak with Sarmiento, they appoint their audit committee with the head auditor, Dr. Rafael Neira. They bring Jorge Enrique into that work to understand what is going on, and they move forward in determining which things may be inexplicable and what conduct may be involved. And that audit work was carried out by Grupo Aval, with Jorge Enrique included.
[David]: Jorge Enrique also recorded a conversation with Rafael Neira, the person Martínez mentioned, who was the Vice President and Controller of Grupo Aval, and he also handed over his findings to him. In his interview with Noticias Uno, Jorge Enrique said that he learned that after the audits, Grupo Aval met with Odebrecht without him. From those meetings with Odebrecht came the settlement agreement not to sue each other.
And then Daniel asked Martínez once again about the recording Jorge Enrique made of the two of them.
[Daniel]: And how do you interpret it now that your close friend recorded that conversation? That—
[Néstor Humberto]: That’s the best of all questions.
[Daniel]: Okay. Let’s see. Because, doesn’t it feel a bit like a betrayal?
[David]: After the break, Martínez continues answering.
We’ll be right back.
We’re back on Ruta del Sol.
So… Daniel asked Martínez how he interpreted the fact that Jorge Enrique had recorded him.
[Daniel]: Doesn’t it feel a bit like him betraying you?
[Néstor Humberto]: No.
[Daniel]: Okay.
[Néstor Humberto]: When I first spoke to the widow after his death and I said to her, Nena, why did Jorge Enrique record me?, she told me: “He recorded everyone. It’s not that he recorded me—he recorded all of his conversations. That frees me from thinking that Jorge Enrique was thinking about me. But why would he have been thinking about me if I was devoted to my professional life and later to my public life? I had no contact with those people; he never saw me involved in any of that. In other words, he comes to me because of our friendship and because he knows that I am the channel through which he can make the documents reach Sarmiento.
[David]: Later in our interview, Martínez returned to this issue of why he believed he had been recorded, and added the following about the conversation he had with Jorge Enrique’s wife.
[Néstor Humberto]: So what she tells me is… it was very painful. And he recorded and made the decision to release the recordings—this is the version I heard that day—because anyone who listens to those recordings knows that you and he are in a shared predicament, trying to figure out what is going on. It’s not that Jorge Enrique, the great investigator—she didn’t say that, I’m saying it—it’s not that Jorge Enrique, the great investigator, is taking a confrontational stance against some guy, telling him, “Look, all this is happening and you’re doing nothing.” No. It’s him and me trying to see what this is. Because of the trust he placed in me by handing over that information to me. So they thought about it a lot and believed that if it were made public, the widow says, it would make it clear that the two of us were on the same side of the movie. In every movie there are good guys and bad guys in every story, and that we were on the same side.
[David]: Jorge Enrique’s wife has never wanted to give public statements and, as we’ve told you, she didn’t want to be a part of this story either. That is why we have not mentioned her name throughout the entire series. I asked her daughters about what Martínez said, and they responded that it was not that Jorge Enrique recorded all of his conversations, but rather that he recorded some work-related ones in order to have documentation of those meetings.
And when you receive that information, you say you take it to Luis Carlos Sarmiento, as Jorge Enrique asked you to do. What else did you do?
[Néstor Humberto]: Absolutely nothing else. I was never even on the audit committees, I was not involved in the investigations. Well, from the beginning I told them, I am not a criminal lawyer, so I do not get involved in those matters.
[David]: And then the issue of what happened after the settlement agreement. My question is not so much why that agreement was made, but rather: knowing that there were irregularities, let’s call them that, why were they not reported to the authorities?
[Néstor Humberto]: I can give you the answer I have to give there: I was a lawyer in possession of that information, and constitutionally there is a duty of professional confidentiality regarding that information. In other words, with that information, as the lawyer I was—not just in Colombia but anywhere in the world, there is absolutely nothing I can do. Whatever had to be done had to be done by the client. Not by me.
[Daniel]: What confuses me is how someone goes from being, say, a private lawyer with clients, in a relationship where this privilege exists, and then becomes Attorney General, where the duty is to investigate irregularities that you may already have known about before. So how is that transition handled? Because the responsibilities are different, and if one is Attorney General, the client is really the Colombian people.
[Néstor Humberto]: That’s very important, because you have to understand how criminal investigations work. The Attorney General does not conduct criminal investigations. It’s that simple. The investigations are carried out by the prosecutors—5,600 autonomous and independent prosecutors that the country has.
[Daniel]: So then, what is the role of the Attorney General? Is it like in the United States when they appoint a sort of Independent Counsel and you say, “Okay, this person handles it and I stay out of it”?
[Néstor Humberto]: No, no, because in this case prosecutors are assigned. I never assigned that case. I never assigned it. They are autonomous and independent prosecutors, with one additional element: the Attorney General—or rather, the Attorney General’s Office—handles 1.8 million cases a year. And people collectively assume that the Attorney General handles those 1.8 million cases. No. That’s not possible. That’s not serious. That’s not true. What does the Attorney General do? The Attorney General focuses on criminal policy in relation to the permanent state, with Congress. During my term, that meant being fundamentally involved in all the coordination and construction of the entire legal framework of the peace process. In formulating prioritization policy. For example, I prioritized—I prioritized, and the results can never be taken away from my administration—the fight against corruption.
[David]: Regarding his election as Attorney General, we asked him whether, when he was being considered as part of the shortlist, he had informed the Supreme Court that he might have conflicts of interest.
Did you mention to them, did you tell them, that some cases involving your former clients might later be investigated by the Attorney General’s Office you could be leading? Did you mention that to the Court at any point?
[Néstor Humberto]: That’s another of my detractor’s arguments. They say, “Ah, but you should have told the Court such and such.” Let’s see. My law firm was one of the largest and most reputable law firms in the country. In other words, I had connections throughout the entire business sector. In fact, some journalist at the time, when I was nominated, said to me: “But don’t you have conflicts of interest? Because you…” And I answered somewhat dismissively: “Well, it’s just that I don’t advise criminals; I don’t practice criminal law.” That was my response. When I was nominated, no one in Colombia had any inkling of the Odebrecht issue—no one. That issue emerged here on December 21, 2016, when I was already Attorney General of the Nation. So how are they going to ask me to be a sorcerer and pull out a fortune-teller’s wand and say, “No, later on this is going to happen”? No. Many things happened.
[David]: And at that point Martínez returned to the argument that Jorge Enrique, at the moment when he recorded the conversations between the two of them, didn’t know either that what he had found might be related to crimes. He mentioned a statement Jorge Enrique gave in January 2018 before an arbitration tribunal, when he was asked about this specific issue.
[Néstor Humberto]: And Jorge Enrique, under oath, says: “At that moment I did not know that a crime had been committed, as we might be able to know today.” It couldn’t be more authentic than that. In other words, that he went to me to say, “Look at this corruption”—no. That was not the case. That was not how it happened.
[David]: Although later, in a recording from the Superintendency—
[Néstor Humberto]: Of Industry and Commerce.
[David]: He says: Go and ask Néstor Humberto Martínez, he knows everything.
I was referring to this recording of testimony given by Jorge Enrique in August 2018, when Martínez had already been Attorney General for two years, and which Caracol News revealed a few days after his death. In it, he desperately says that he told high-ranking officials from Grupo Aval about his findings, including Martínez, and that nothing happened.
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[Jorge Enrique Pizano]: I hope they summon Dr. Néstor Humberto Martínez Neira to this witness stand and ask him. Or Alberto Mariño, or Mauricio Millán himself, whom I haven’t mentioned, that I told them these things. And what action… what happened? Nothing.
[David]: After the break, his response. We’ll be right back.
We’re back on La Ruta del Sol.
Before the break, I mentioned to Martínez the recording of Jorge Enrique Pizano’s testimony at the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce. It’s a video from August 2018 in which Jorge Enrique says that three years earlier he had told high-ranking officials at Grupo Aval—including Martínez—about his findings, and that nothing had happened.
[Néstor Humberto]: Very interesting, because you’re bringing up a subject that is very important. What happened? What happened was the following, which is a sad part of all this.
[David]: According to Martínez, there is a backstory that explains Jorge Enrique’s statement. And it has to do with the falling apart of that friendship.
First, Martínez reminded us of the investigation that the Attorney General’s Office opened against Jorge Enrique for allegedly having received a bribe from Odebrecht when he was director of the Bogotá Aqueduct. Martínez emphasized that by the time he arrived at the Attorney General’s Office, that case was already underway.
[Néstor Humberto]: They’ve said—no, that it was, that I… There’s been so much malice and so much infamy. As if I had somehow dishonored that relationship. That I opened a special investigation against Jorge Enrique Pizano to break him, to subdue him, because he supposedly knew everything about the Odebrecht case. Well, look here: this is my WhatsApp conversation with Jorge Enrique. I’m going to commit the indiscretion of showing you what Jorge Enrique wrote to me in 2017:
“Dr. Néstor Humberto, good morning. I read El Tiempo today, truly far-fetched. A prosecutor named Valbueno—actually it’s Valbuena—has not known how to involve me in issues I haven’t taken part in for seven years.”
[David]: In that message Martínez read to us, and that we were able to see on his phone, Jorge Enrique tells him about the Aqueduct issue—that he had nothing to do with it, that a prosecutor had offered him a deal but he had rejected it. Martínez continued reading.
[Néstor Humberto]: I’ve been under investigation for four years. Jorge Enrique himself, in February 2017, tells me that he has been under investigation for four years—and they say I set up that investigation against him. Don’t be scoundrels. Don’t be vile. He himself told me that; he made me aware of it. I didn’t know.
[David]: Why do you think he sent you that message at that moment?
[Néstor Humberto]: Because I was his friend. And I was his lifeline. Obviously. What any normal person would do—grab the life preserver to see how to get out of that situation. Here is my reply. And that day my problems with Jorge Enrique, my friend, begin. That same day—you can see it here—I tell him: Jorge Enrique, I’m sorry, but you know my private phone is for personal matters. If you’re interested in submitting any formal request to the Attorney General’s Office, you can certainly do so. That’s what an honorable Attorney General would do—even with a friend. Of course, I could have called him to my house: Dear Jorge Enrique, let’s see what we can do.” No. All of that had to be handled through the judicial process. He had no reason to come to me. Go and speak with the prosecutors handling the case. That frustrated him a great deal. And I understand it, because we were very close friends, and that naturally caused enormous dismay in his family—of course it did. But do you think I had any other option? I had no other option at all.
[David]: According to Martínez, this is what caused the relationship between the two of them to deteriorate. He also told us that it was at that point that Jorge Enrique began looking for ways out of the problem he was in, and that’s why he contacted journalist María Jimena Duzán, who—according to Martínez—convinced him to begin a strategy to discredit the Attorney General’s Office.
[Daniel]: So, if when he wrote to you and said, Please help me, I’m in this situation, and you said this is my private phone. If you want to do it, it’s somewhere else. If you had said yes, let’s see friend, let’s see what we can do, would those audios never have come out?
[Néstor Humberto]: Oh no. They never would have come out. Of course they wouldn’t have. But in between there were many more factors of pressure against me. As I told you, my son was living in New York; they had him travel to Barcelona, where Alejandro was living, and he went as his close friend to visit him there with his wife. And my son told me that the whole time he kept telling him to talk to his father so that he wouldn’t do anything to Jorge Enrique. That’s the story. That’s what’s behind all of this. So the whole story has to be told.
[David]: Martínez told us that although the relationship with Jorge Enrique had indeed broken down, there was a moment when he thought things might improve. It was at the funeral of Martínez’s sister, in August 2018, three months before Jorge Enrique died.
[Néstor Humberto]: Jorge Enrique went to the funeral. I thought that was very noble of him. He came up to me and hugged me. Later, his son told me that he had appreciated that very much, because there had been a doubt of whether I had stopped caring for him or whether I was after him or something like that.
[David]: Martínez was left with a good feeling. But he told us that two days later he received a new message from Jorge Enrique. That one, he didn’t show us. According to Martínez, Jorge Enrique deleted it because, apparently, he had sent it to the wrong person—it was actually meant for his son Alejandro. But Martínez assured us that even though Jorge Enrique deleted it, he had already read it.
[Néstor Humberto]: That message that Jorge Enrique deleted, two days after my sister’s death, said something like: “Hey, that’s it, I’m desperate now. I’m going to stir up a media mess. That’s the only thing left for my defense.” Something along those lines—that’s what he said. So since I had already read it, I wrote back to him. What does it say there?
[David]: And he showed us his reply in the chat. He read it aloud.
[Néstor Humberto]: So I wrote back: “Wow!”—with exclamation marks.
[David]: And then he read to us the message Jorge Enrique sent in response.
[Néstor Humberto]: And it says: “I made a mistake. It was for Alejandro Pizano. It was for Alejandro, telling him that I can’t stand anymore the threats from prosecutor Zettien, acting on instructions from above to mess up Pizano, that they let my lawyer know, and that I want to explain to the media that I’m not a criminal. Will you forgive me? I know this is your personal phone. My apologies. I’m very distressed.”
So do you see how he changed his strategy? After that, he started looking for foreign authorities, he started reaching out to Colombian journalists—for what he told me on August 9: “I’m going to make a scandal, I can’t take it anymore.” He really changed his strategy so that the Attorney General’s Office wouldn’t investigate him. That’s my conclusion. And in the face of that strategy, I unfortunately end up being a victim of all this. Because if I had stepped in, if I had improperly interfered in that case, he would have been calm and nothing would have happened. And everyone would be very happy. But that is not how justice works, nor is that my character.
[David]: And at that point I brought up Jorge Enrique’s desperation over what he believed was persecution by the Attorney General’s Office—his conviction that his communications were being intercepted.
Jorge Enrique later said, in that Noticias Uno interview, that he felt there was a persecution, more than just a legal proceeding, so to speak.
[Néstor Humberto]: And that’s understandable, understandable. Anyone in those circumstances feels like they’re being persecuted. And that was the idea that was sold to him.
[David]: He talked about possible wiretaps, about calls being tapped, about people listening to his conversations at home. What can you say about that? He said it was all orchestrated by the Attorney General’s Office.
[Néstor Humberto]: Well, I don’t know—I don’t know if his phone was being intercepted. You know that when there are investigations, the phones of those under investigation can be intercepted. Today, in response to your question, I can tell you under oath that I don’t know.
[David]: I then moved on to talk about the protection that Jorge Enrique himself had requested from the Attorney General’s Office, because he felt that his safety and that of his family were at risk.
About the issue of him having requested protection from Amparo Cerón—directly from you.
[Néstor Humberto]: No, never directly from me, because he wasn’t speaking to me.
[David]: He sent a letter to the Attorney General’s Office.
[Néstor Humberto]: Yes, and I’ll start by telling you that the Attorney General receives 8,000 letters a day, every day addressed by name: “Mr. Néstor Martínez, Attorney General.” And there are units of, I don’t know how many, maybe 50 people who distribute those letters among all the different offices. I never knew that he had requested security.
[David]: And would you have granted it?
[Néstor Humberto]: But of course. If I had known, I would have given Jorge Enrique protection. But look how telling this is, how curious—this is yet another one of the vile things people have said about me—so I brought the documents.
[David]: As we said earlier, Martínez arrived at this interview with a briefcase full of documents. At that moment, he took one out and began to explain it to us.
[Néstor Humberto]: Let’s see, the story is this: on August 14, 2018, Jorge Enrique Pizano wrote to Dr. Amparo Cerón requesting protection for his family. He had testified in June of that year, remember? So he was having security concerns, and those concerns had to be legitimate. Then Amparo Cerón, who is a prosecutor, wrote to the National Director of Protection and Assistance on August 21, 2018, and said: “Please grant protection.” And this is sacred—these are the documents. An auditor once taught me that papers speak for themselves.
On September 11, 2018, the Director of Protection and Assistance says: “In response to the request for protection from Mr. Jorge Enrique Pizano, I hereby inform you that, by means of an act dated today, it was decided not to include him in the protection program. This decision was made because, after conducting the technical threat and risk assessment, the necessary elements to incorporate him as a beneficiary of the protection program were not found, considering that he did not give his consent for possible inclusion and therefore did not meet the requirements of Article Two of Resolution [number] of 2016. This information is confidential.”
He did not enter the protection program because he did not sign the document by which he would agree to submit to the protection protocol. Those who are placed under protection are moved to undisclosed apartments paid for by the Attorney General’s Office, and they are given special security details. I don’t know if that seemed acceptable to Jorge Enrique, or if it didn’t appeal to him—whatever the reason. The fact is, it was he who chose not to enter the protection program. Here is the letter. For everything, I have a paper and a document, and I have spent these past six years gathering them, because this is about the integrity of the Attorney General’s Office and the integrity of my own honor.
[David]: I continued asking him about the statements made against him by the former anti-corruption prosecutor. That former prosecutor, remember, ended up in prison precisely for corruption.
And about the accusations made by Luis Gustavo Moreno, which he has been making since 2020 and 2021.
In interviews with María Jimena Duzán, Moreno said that Martínez appointed him to that position in order to run a corrupt machinery inside the Attorney General’s Office.
[Néstor Humberto]: I’ll start by saying that Luis Gustavo Moreno is also another convicted individual. All these people who circle around and who have said something share one thing in common: they were investigated and convicted during the term of Néstor Humberto Martínez. The case of Moreno was extremely painful. I entrusted him completely with the most important program I had at the Attorney General’s Office, which was the Anti-Corruption Program. And I did so because one of my best friends recommended him, and he had a résumé as a distinguished university professor. And then it became necessary to arrest Moreno, and later came his conviction. He has shown a great deal of remorse, which I find wonderful.
And then he said: “Yes, but Néstor Humberto Martínez appointed Amparo Cerón so that she would handle the case.” What did Amparo Cerón do as soon as those statements by Luis Gustavo Moreno became public? She filed a criminal complaint against him. And that woman would die for her honor—rightly so. That is what we honorable citizens must do when corruption chases us: go to the justice system. But people don’t even bother to look into those investigations.
[David]: Nearly two and a half hours into the interview, we returned to the story of Jorge Enrique…
How did you receive the news of Jorge Enrique’s death, and then, Alejandro’s? How did you experience that moment?
[Néstor Humberto]: That was very painful—very painful—because, whether people believe it today or not, it hurts that the family allowed themselves to be fed certain stories. But they know that I was a genuine friend to Jorge Enrique.
[David]: And in the midst of that tragedy, did you regret anything at that moment, or did you feel you could have done something more for Jorge Enrique at that time?
[Néstor Humberto]: Look, what they accuse me of is having sped up a process that I didn’t even know existed. They say I reopened the case. I already showed you that Jorge Enrique himself told me he had been dealing with that for four years. In other words, I had nothing to do with that mess. I could have regretted it if I had said, Well, I could have intervened in that process. And as has been done so many times in this country, shelved the investigation, locked it away. But I didn’t do that. And in that moral and human dilemma, I ask myself: did I act rightfully? And I have to answer: I acted rightfully. I couldn’t offer Jorge Enrique hope outside of what was in the case files.
[David]: Although we initially thought the interview would last no more than an hour, we ended up talking about many topics for around three hours. At the end, Martínez gathered all the documents he had been taking out and putting on the table. He organized them and put them away in his briefcase. We said goodbye.
In the next episode, the last in this series, we’ll hear from him again. And from the Pizano family as well, of course.
[Carolina Pizano]: Once we were able to manage the grief, to be a bit calmer, to a certain extent, you start to realize that, for our grieving process, it’s also necessary to have the intention of clarifying what happened. It’s very easy to say, I’m not going to think about that, I’ll just think about the nice things that happened, about the good things. Yes, about the family we had, about the love, the relationship. Yes—but that’s not seeing the elephant in the room. It’s about looking for the reason for the death. It’s about opening Pandora’s box.
[Juanita Pizano]: I don’t like that comment from third parties—why are you all so angry? That old comment you hear all the time to women: calm down. No, I’m not angry or hysterical. I just want to know what happened. The three of us—my mom, my sister, and I—would like the Attorney General’s Office to carry out all of the duties that correspond to it, properly and legally, because it didn’t do so at the time.
Credits
[David]: La Ruta del Sol is a podcast by Central, the narrative series channel of Radio Ambulante Studios, and it’s part of iHeartRadio’s My Cultura podcast network.
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 was done by Bruno Scelza and Sergio Sebastián Retavisca. Legal review was conducted by Camilo Vallejo. Sound design and mixing were done by Martín Cruz, with original music by Andrés Nusser. The graphic design and art direction for the series are by Diego Corzo.
Product development for La Ruta del Sol was led by Natalia Ramírez. Digital production was handled by Nelson Rauda and Óscar Luna, with support from Lina Rincón and Samantha Proaño, from the 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 would like to thank FLIP for their valuable support in the legal review of this production and for their advice 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 newsletter at centralpodcast.audio.
I’m David Trujillo. Thanks for listening.