Colombia’s military discredited further, now accused of embezzlement

Colombia’s military discredited further, now accused of embezzlement
Feb 16, 2014 posted by Adriaan Alsema

Commanders have been embezzling millions of dollars from Colombia’s defense budget, weekly Semana revealed on Sunday, further discrediting the armed forces that only two weeks ago were accused of illegally wiretapping peace negotiators, politicians and journalists.

According to Semana, which had investigated hundreds of hours of 2012 and 2013 recordings between generals, colonels and lieutenant colonels, corrupt officials received kickbacks of distributed military contracts that in some cases were worth 50% of the entire contract.

The kickbacks were skimmed from budgets meant for fuel, subsidies for active soldiers, fighting gear and spare parts for helicopters, said Semana. According to the recordings, the embezzlement scheme also implicates Ecuador’s Defense Ministry and military contractors from Venezuela.

Colombia’s top military commander implicated

The magazine also released recordings of the commander of the Armed Forces, General Leonardo Barrero, in which Colombia’s highest military officials calls on an imprisoned colonel to “create a mafia to discredit prosecutors” investigating the colonel and colleagues for the extrajudicial killing of civilians, a practice that became widespread under the administration of former President Alvaro Uribe and has killed at least 4,000 civilians in the eight years Uribe was in power.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/colombias-military-discredited-now-accused-embezzlement/