The Albany Gazette - Colombian nanny scandal takes ever stranger plot twists

The case has drawn in President Gustavo Petro and has been blamed for the apparent suicide last week of a policeman attached to his security.

For a week starting Thursday, officials including Petro's former chief of staff Laura Sarabia and ex-ambassador to Venezuela Armando Benedetti will appear before prosecutors investigating the case, it was announced Tuesday.

The saga has gripped Colombian society with all the elements of a soap opera: claims of blackmail, stolen dollars in a briefcase, kidnapping, lie detector tests and campaign fraud.

The claims have seen Sarabia and Benedetti -- two key Petro aides -- forced to step down, only for one of them to level allegations of illegal campaign financing against the president himself.

It all started with Marelbys Meza, a nanny employed by Sarabia, claiming to a newspaper that she had been the victim of illegal phone tapping following the disappearance of a briefcase containing thousands of dollars from her boss' house.

To gain access to her calls, a false report was allegedly used to link her to organized crime, according to Attorney General Francisco Barbosa, who opened an investigation.

Meza has also accused her former employer of having her subjected to illegal interrogation and a lie detector test in January at a building attached to the presidential palace in Bogota.

The revelations caused Sarabia and Benedetti to hurl accusations of wrongdoing at one another.

Meza had previously worked as a nanny for Benedetti, and Sarabia accused the ambassador of setting her up.

As the case spiralled, Benedetti threatened Sarabia with exposing alleged illegal financing of Petro's campaign, of which he had been a key advisor.

Then on Friday, police lieutenant-colonel Oscar Davila was found dead in his car in Bogota, allegedly from a self-inflicted bullet wound.

Petro alluded to a suicide, and Colombian media reported Davila may have been somehow involved in the alleged wiretapping of Meza.

Davila's lawyer Miguel Angel del Rio said his client had felt "persecuted" and "threatened."

- Strained ties -

Investigators from the prosecutor's office have twice visited the presidency in the course of the investigation, including Davila's office on the 13th floor of a building annexed to the presidency.

Barbosa said Tuesday the protagonists in the case have all been summoned to give evidence.

Hearings will start on Thursday with Davila's lawyer and the head of presidential security, Colonel Carlos Feria Buitrago, giving evidence in relation to the policeman's death.

In connection with the alleged disappearance of the suitcase, Sarabia herself has been called to testify on June 22.

On June 20 and 21, six people are due to give evidence related to the alleged illegal wiretapping, including four members of the presidential security team and Sarabia's husband.

On the last day, June 23, Benedetti has been called to explain his campaign financing claims, said the attorney general.

Benedetti had sought to blame "rage and drink" for his recorded, expletive-riddled rant against Sarabia, which was made public by the La Revista Semana newspaper.

The scandal comes at a time of strained relations between Petro and Barbosa, who was appointed by the president's rightwing predecessor.

Petro, Colombia's first-ever leftist president, has accused the attorney general of acting against his "change" agenda.

The president has denied any impropriety.

(S.G.Stein--BBZ)