Prosecutor’s Office will have to compensate Admiral Gabriel Arango Bacci with $ 700 million

“As a non-pecuniary reparation of the rights to good name and human dignity, the Nation-Prosecutor’s Office, through a personal letter addressed to Mr. Gabriel Ernesto Arango Bacci, he will apologize for the unjust detention to which he was subjected, ”reads the ruling that a few hours ago ordered the admiral to be compensated, according to the El Tiempo Investigative Unit.

This, just over 12 years after the former director of Cotecmar, the naval shipyard of the National Navy, located in Cartagena, was sentenced to pay 18 months of detention –between June 19, 2008 and December 3, 2009- in a process for alleged links with drug trafficking.

At the time, the newspaper recalls, the Attorney General’s Office argued that the admiral had violated information reserved at your expense, by supplying navigation charts to drug traffickers, who would have used them to move drugs out of the country.

The process began on August 24, 2007 when the entity called him for an investigation, charging him with the charges of andIllicit enrichment and links with drug trafficking.

As a result of the investigation, Arango Bacci ended up being withdrawn from active duty on a discretionary basis by the government and, as said, deprived of his liberty.

However, as the newspaper’s digital portal points out, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, determined that the officer had not committed said acts and made his release official with a sentence of December 3, 2009, which opened the door to a new lawsuit.

As expected, the former admiral, through attorney Jaime Granados, requested that the Nation and the Prosecutor’s Office be declared administratively responsible, for the material and moral damages caused to Arango and his family, as a consequence of the unjust deprivation of liberty. However, the publication pointed out, a judgment of first instance denied these claims in June 2014.

The plaintiffs, despite the opposition of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Nation, appealed the refusal and, this afternoon, finally received a ruling in favor, on behalf of the third section, sub section B, of the Council of State, with a presentation by the counselor Ramiro Pazos Guerrero.

According to the ruling and in addition to the apologies mentioned at the beginning of this article, the Nation and the Prosecutor’s Office will have to compensate the Arango family (the admiral, his wife and their four children) with a sum that is close to $ 700 million that, for Granados, they set a precedent with respect to the deprivation of liberty without any judicial support.

Additionally, Arango Bacci will have to agree with the entities in question whether it is sufficient for the apology to be delivered personally as a document, or whether it must also be published on their dissemination platforms.

In this regard, both the defenders of the Prosecutor’s Office and those of the Nation warned during different stages of the process that the amounts demanded by the Arango family exceeded those established by jurisprudence in terms of moral damages and damage to life it means. In addition, they pointed out that the preventive detention was legitimate. Consequently, the State Council adjusted the amounts, but rejected the entity’s arguments, concluded El Tiempo.

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