[ad_1]
The controversial businessman Germán Garrido will be investigated as the probable mastermind of the murder of Celia Escobar, former Dian auditor. The First Criminal Circuit Judge asked for his involvement, when he issued a new sentence against another of the organizers of the criminal plan.
RICARDO AREIZA
Unidadinvestigativa@lanación.com.co
For the crime of Celia Escobar Flórez, head of the Dian’s audit, which occurred on May 10, 2013, seven years ago, they paid 40 million pesos.
The money was distributed between the two hit men who carried out the brutal murder and Jesús Ignacio Lozada Zabala, the man who coordinated the criminal network.
The murder began to be prepared on April 16 of that year, in Cúcuta (Norte de Santander) where the material authors lived. From that time it was mentioned that behind the crime was the businessman Germán Garrido. However, Garrido rejected any link to the murder.
The Prosecutor’s Office announced an investigation into the alleged money laundering. The process is still active but without progress.
Now, seven years after the crime, for the first time, the Third Criminal Judge of the Neiva Circuit, required copies of the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate Garrido for his presumed participation in the murder of Dian official Celia Escobar.
Garrido was repeatedly pointed out by César Augusto Badillo Galvis, the man who operated the motorcycle used for the attack.
The testimonies were recorded in a brief and were later ratified in the oral trial that ended last Friday with the conviction of Jesús Ignacio Losada, 48 years and six months in prison, as co-author.
The 36-year-old man was reportedly contacted by the businessman to plan the crime in which he had a “leading role”.
Losada Zabala received eight million pesos, of the 40 million pesos that the intellectual author paid. The rest, 32 million pesos, were received by Leonardo Favio Rivera, the gunman, and Badillo Galvis, who was riding the motorcycle.
The confession is part of the extensive file. Due to its value as documentary evidence, we present some sections.
Badillo’s Story
“I met Leonardo Fabio Rivera, we were there in Cúcuta in April 2013. That was like a 16.
-What makes you old? -I wonder.
“Nothing old, here wanting to travel,” I replied.
-I have a tour in Neiva – he said.
I know Neiva more or less. What lap is it?
-Kill a spoon! -answered.
- How much are they paying for that?
-Forty million pesos.
For how many ?, I ask Leonardo Favio and he tells me that for three, twenty million for him, twelve million for me and eight for ‘Nacho’.
“Faiver Rivera tells me that he takes twenty million because he is the one who is going to kill her; Twelve million for me because I carry the motorcycle and eight million are for Jesús Ignacio Lozada (‘Nacho’), because he gets us the contract in Neiva, he lent us the iron and the motorcycle, apart from that he has already been following it for several days. Done! – Badillo replied.
“We, Fabio Rivera and I traveled from Cúcuta since April 22, we made a stopover in Bogotá, only for the transfer and we took the bus that went to Neiva. On April 23 we arrived in Neiva ”, Badillo related in his first confession.
“We, Fabio Rivera and I traveled from Cúcuta since April 22, we made a stopover in Bogotá, only for the transfer and we took the bus that went to Neiva. On April 23 we arrived in Neiva ”, he related in his first confession.
That day, Losada Zabala, made an appointment for them on a soccer field in the Manzanares neighborhood.
“When we arrived,” he said, “they were waiting for us: The man is called German Garrido, owner of Huila-Africa, well known in the city of Neiva and Jesús Ignacio Lozada Zabala.”
The money
“There we cross the words of the business, Mr. German Garrido gives him twenty million pesos and the other twenty for after we have killed the lady,” he confessed.
“After a few days, when we already knew where the lady lived and where we had to do everything and everything, we chewed on her (sic) twice.”
“In the two days prior to the death of the lady, I passed at about one or two in the afternoon on the block where the lady. I passed alone, ”said Badillo.
“That was on Friday, May 10, 2013, when we decided to go kill her, we started like the neighborhood of southern Neiva since three in the afternoon. I was on a motorcycle, Jesús Ignacio Lozada Zabala and Leonardo Fabio Rivera were in a black truck. ”
“At about 6:40 that we were hanging around, we decided that Leonardo Favio would get on the bike with the gun.”
The appointed day
Jesús Ignacio Lozada was located in a strategic place near where the lady was living in the Los Cámbulos neighborhood.
“He waited for her to pass in the vehicle to give us the signal. He tells us: There it goes!
“So we started because it was two blocks from there. When she arrives and puts the car onto the parking lot platform, at that moment Leonardo Fabio Rivera gets out. ”
We knew that was her and that it was there. Also, we knew that that was the car.
“When he sees that the lady is getting out of the car, he shoots her and ends up killing her when he makes six bullet wounds. She went down and he hits the first one, he starts to stumble and falls, that’s when Leonardo arrives and hits the other shots.
Then, we left there about two blocks away, we were going to make the transfer. It consisted of me taking him to the truck, he goes with Jesús Ignacio Lozada Zabala and I continue only on the other side.
Mission accomplished
“We meet again, in the Tuquila neighborhood in the south of Neiva, at around 7:30 at night.
“At that moment, Jesús Ignacio made a call to one of the boys who remained at the scene of the incident to harass the family of the dead woman, who made him a warning:
-Look what can happen! It was like a condolence.
Then ‘Nacho’ confirmed that we had already done it and that we were in the Tuquila neighborhood.
The presentation
Jesús Ignacio Lozada Zabala contacted Leonardo Favio and me to commit the murder of Mrs. Celia Escobar Flórez.
“The man who paid us the sum of forty million pesos is Mr. German Garrido.”
“We travel with Yina and Camila, our couples do not remember what time, with our partners we stay in a hotel called ‘Puracé’. (Did I stumble?)
“In hotels we do not like to give names for security (…) the next day Leonardo calls‘ Nacho ’to balance work.
“We take a taxi to the soccer field in the Manzanares neighborhood. At that moment we were on the court, ‘Nacho’ arrived with a man. ‘Nacho’ introduces us to Mr. German Garrido. How do you feel about the work you are going to do? He asks us.
“We feel good,” we replied. The guidelines are already coordinated by ‘Nacho’, Jesús Ignacio Lozada Zabala.
“The motorcycle and the iron are not provided by ‘Nacho’. The old man tells us that by starting he will give us 20 million pesos. After the meeting ended, ‘Nacho’ and the man went to a Ford-2,500 truck.
The ‘return’
“The next day we met ‘Nacho’, Leonardo and me. That’s when ‘Nacho’ tells us that this man is a small Pablito Escobar in Neiva, his name is German Garrido, who is the owner of Huila-Africa.
“From there we started to square the lap. (…). About three days later we had everything ready, such as the house, the place where we were going to go out and everything.
“On Friday, May 10 at about half past six we decided to go kill her. ‘Nacho’ stayed at a strategic point where she passed; Leonardo and I stayed about two blocks from where she lived.
‘Nacho’ calls Leonardo and says: There he goes!
“At that moment Leonardo gets on the bike of which I was a pilot. Arriving at the lady’s house, Leonardo jumps on the motorcycle, when he shoots her, I pick him up. A few blocks away was ‘Nacho’, which is the transfer in a black truck.
“After the murder we went out to a neighborhood in the south of Neiva. When I got there about 15 minutes later, ‘Nacho’ and Leonardo arrived in the van.
“Everything went well,” they say. Even ‘Nacho’ had paid a boy to leave him as a warning to the family, as a condolences. The boys arrive on a motorcycle and he tells them they did what he told them to do. “
The controversy
The claims of César Badillo Galvis supported the theory of the Prosecutor’s Office, compared to the role played by Jesús Ignacio Losada Zabala, convicted as a co-author.
The condemned man was the protagonist of events in five central events: he contacts, receives and reunites the assassins with the alleged murderer; provides the murder weapon and motorcycle used by hitmen; He makes intelligence at the victim’s residence and shows it to the assassins, he transfers the assassins in a van two blocks from the scene of the crime and indicates the moment when the victim passes to his residence, after the homicide waits for the assassin and he transfers the motorcycle to the truck in which he was waiting for him and they flee the place. ”
“Badillo Galvis’s testimony cannot be credible, because in the first interviews he recounted the way in which the murder of Celia Escobar Flórez was carried out and perpetrated,” said Luis Emiro Sánchez, defender of Losada Zabala.
“While, in an interview given in September 2017, he retracted the facts, arguing that he had nothing to do with the facts and that he had pointed out Losada Zabala because a man named Job who was in the prison of Rivera had narrated it to him ”, he noted.
However, Badillo Galvis fully accepted his participation and responsibility in the murder of Mrs. Celia Escobar Flórez and for this he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
The defense questioned the fact that Mr. German Garrido had not been linked to the criminal proceeding, expressly stated in his statements by Badillo Galvis.
“The present investigation began was against Jesús Ignacio Losada Zabala, not against other people. Therefore, this judiciary will not be able to pronounce itself if Mr. German Garrido assumes responsibility for these acts, ”the judge replied when she pronounced the condemnatory sentence.
However, it required copies so that the Office of the Prosecutor investigates the participation that Mr. Garrido may have had in the murder of Mrs. Celia Escobar Flórez.
