Prosecutor's Office asks to convict former magistrate Eduardo Castellanos for receiving money from drug trafficker

The Deputy Prosecutor, Jorge Díaz, assured the Supreme Court on the afternoon of Thursday, April 21, that there is sufficient evidence for the former Justice and Peace Chamber of the High Court of Bogotá, Eduardo Castellanos Roso, to be convicted by the high court for having received $50,000 from drug trafficker known as alias 'The Twin', to grant him benefits in a judicial process, that is how Caracol Radio knew him.

According to the results of the investigations by the Prosecutor's Office, handed over to the judges of the Trial Chamber by the Prosecutor Díaz, it was determined that the former judge Castellanos, captured in 2018, if he received the millionaire sum of the drug trafficker, who intended the public official to include him as a paramilitary in the process of Justice and Peace.

Evidence compiled by the Prosecutor's Office, and known to Caracol Radio, indicated that Castellanos Roso received the millionaire sum in three payments, which were delivered by Marco Tulio Quintero Cano, lawyer alias 'El Mellizo'. As explained by the prosecutor Díaz, the first was $20,000, paid in a cafeteria on Carrera Seventh; the second, $20,000, delivered to a parking lot on race 9 between 23rd and 24th streets and, the last, “$10,000, delivered in the same vehicle and place.”

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For the millions of sums received, for which the former magistrate apparently granted confidential information about judicial proceedings to the lawyer alias 'El Mellizo', among other benefits such as unjustified postponements of hearings, the deputy prosecutor asked the Supreme Court of Justice to convict Eduardo Castellanos Roso Roso.

Caracol Radio also learned that the response to the request, to which the Office of the Attorney General and Executive Directorate of Judicial Administration also joined, will be known in the coming months, although the exact date is not yet known.

It should be recalled that, despite the fact that Castellanos Roso has been released since last December 2021 due to the expiration of terms, the Full Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ruled on January 25 of this year that the former judge will not be able to return to public office.

At the beginning of the same month, Castellanos had sent a letter to the high court indicating that he would resume his position in the judicial branch, after being released. “In that order, with all restraint I express that from that date on I resume my duties as a judge of the Chamber of Justice and Peace of the Superior Court of Bogotá,” the former public official communicated in the letter, known by Noticias Caracol.

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The high court studied the arguments submitted by Castellanos and determined that, despite being released due to expiry of terms, the reasons why the judicial branch considered him “unworthy” to remain in office since 2018, when he began to be investigated for judicial corruption, have not changed. In that sense, according to the information obtained by the newspaper El Tiempo, the former magistrate will not be able to return to his office.

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