In a statement released to the public opinion, Petro warned of how members of his cabinet have been victims of judicial persecution and warned of attempts by certain sectors to establish “an institutional rupture”.

“They have decided on institutional rupture. As president of the Republic I must warn the world of the mafia takeover of the Prosecutor’s Office and I must ask the people for the maximum popular mobilization”, warned the president.

Petro alluded in his statement to the case of Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva, who was suspended for the first time in history by the Attorney General’s Office.

“The desperate response will be not only to suspend Álvaro Leyva, but to criminally prosecute the Ecopetrol CEO (the main oil company) and the superintendent of Public Services for having been serving as president of the Colombia Humana party,” Petro added.

The Prosecutor’s Office, he added, “will ask for my impeachment without hiding the fact that they have carried out an unconstitutional investigation against me, seeking the triumph the people did not grant them”.

Unions have been raided, he revealed, torture and pressure has been used on witnesses to accuse the president and they have not succeeded; desperately drug trafficking sectors, perpetrators of crimes against humanity, corrupt politicians and corrupt sectors of the Prosecutor’s Office seek the president’s removal from the office.

“Even facts repeated several times in campaigns of other political parties such as the one the attorney general belongs to, and which have been previously declared legal, in our case are criminalized with desperation”, Petro further stated.

Past January, Petro warned about attempts underway to overthrow him when he stressed that the raid ordered by the Attorney General’s Office to the offices of the Colombian Federation of Educators (Fecode) was aimed at finding a way to remove him from the Presidency of the Republic.

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