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Former Minister of Agriculture Andrés Felipe Arias, sentenced to 17 years in prison, declared in a Trial that is being carried out before the 43rd court of knowledge of Bogotá against three former officials, who were his subordinates in the ministry, for the Agro Ingreso Seguro scandal.
Arias spoke on the stand as a witness in the trial against the former officials: Juan David Ortega Arroyave, Óskar August Shoeder Muller and Tulia Eugenia Méndez Reyes.
The former minister defended the agreements he signed and for which he was processed, and presented an unprecedented concept from the Ministry of Agriculture that, being a victim in the process, says, supposedly, that the agreements were of science and technology, that they should have been signed directly and that it had always been done that way. Document that has been filed on October 22, 2020.
“The Ministry of Agriculture filed a document where it recognizes not only that irrigation is science and technology, but also that those agreements for which I was processed on 003 of 2007, 055 of 2008 and 052 of 2009 were effectively cooperation agreements science and technology that have always been subscribed to in the ministry and that should have been subscribed in that way: without bidding, directly. It is the first time I have seen the victim in a case of these, so long after, say that there is no crime. Because the victim, the ministry, where the agreements were signed, acknowledges that they were for science and technology, that they applied the direct contracting rule, that this has always been done and that it was the right thing to do.Arias said.
By request of the lawyers and despite the opposition of the Prosecutor’s Office, endorsed the document as new evidence in the process.
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