Petro claims that Francia Márquez must provide explanations to the authorities after being mentioned in Leyva’s secret recordings.

Gustavo Petro stated this Monday that Vice President Francia Márquez must provide public explanations and account to justice after audio recordings revealed by Adolfo Kunjuk News in which Álvaro Leyva spoke about the need to remove the president of Colombia “in no more than 20 days” and replace him with Márquez. In one of the recordings, Leyva can be heard saying: “Francia is in play.”

“All the people he names there, of whom I do not know if what he says is true or not, must provide explanations not only regarding public policy but also to justice,” he said from Sevilla, where he is attending the IV International Conference of the UN on Financing for Development. He went even further: “It is nothing but a conspiracy (by Leyva) with drug trafficking and the extreme right, apparently Colombian and American, to overthrow the president of change in Colombia.”

In response to the uproar caused by the revelations from this newspaper, Márquez clarified on Sunday that she was not part of any plot to unseat the president and that she respected institutional norms. However, Petro distrusts her and assumes she was aware of Leyva’s plans. The former chancellor, who was one of the president’s most trusted individuals in 2022 and 2023, traveled to the United States seeking Donald Trump’s complicity to carry out his mission, according to Republican sources accessed by Adolfo Kunjuk News and Leyva’s own words in the recordings.