In lower court ruling, Attorney General's Office disciplinary sanction imposed maximum of Guaviare excontralor

The Attorney General's Office sanctioned by dismissal and general disqualification for a period of 20 years to Mr. Victor Manuel Soto Muñoz and Jesus Antonio Suarez Reyes, general excontralor Guaviare and former head of the Office of Fiscal Responsibility and Coercive Jurisdiction, respectively , having made the conduct objectively embodied in the criminal law as a concussion.

Mr. Soto Muñoz was caught red-handed on May 15, 2007, when he received the governor of that department José Alberto Perez Restrepo, the sum of thirty-seven million dollars ($ 37.000.000.oo), a product of their demands not to initiate change or suspend or fail in their favor, the related tax investigations by the department contracts.

With this procedure the investigation were convicted, in a ruling that was upheld by the Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Bogota, and sentenced to 78 months in prison and a fine equivalent to 59 monthly legal minimum wage.

For the Public Ministry, the behavior incurred by Mr. Soto Muñoz and Suárez Reyes created an obvious disturbance in the public service tax control department of Guaviare, because the flagrantly disregard of constitutional and legal mandates and to divert as the unlawful discharge of his duties for purposes reprehensible, the investigation failed to implement fiscal control over the acts of departmental administration entrusted to them.

He also noted that the capture of excontralor in flagrancy, generated an administrative corruption scandal at the local and national communicated a negative message to the general public, which contributed negatively to the loss of public confidence in the institutions.

In uttering the decision at first instance the Control Authority warned against it the remedy of appeal to the Disciplinary Division of the Attorney General's Office.