In a message posted on his Twitter account, Petro stated that the journalist was arrested and beaten by the Washington government because of the political support Rubio “gave to Abelardo de la Espriella, the defender of genocidal narco-paramilitaries against the Colombian people, who suggested his capture,” referring to the far-right presidential candidate.

The president remembered that Coral, who sought asylum in the United States ten years ago because drug cartels threatened to kill him, is the son of Captain Humberto Coral, who was killed during a police operation to stop drug lord Pablo Escobar.

“What must the members of the Colombian security forces, the world’s largest cocaine seizure force, think if the very states they benefit reject and torture even the children of those killed in combat against drug trafficking?” Petro asked.

He also stated that De la Espriella, whom he described as a lawyer and associate of the narcoparamilitaries who murdered 90,000 Colombians between 1990 and 2007, “has unleashed a pogrom against a civilian population group with a political identity, which qualifies as a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.”

Petro remebered that his country had already experienced a period of persecution against those who identified with the left, “with the murder of more than 7,000 members of the legal Colombian party, the Patriotic Union,” and that one of those victims was Senator Manuel Cepeda, father of current presidential candidate Iván Cepeda.

Petro also called on “governments and human rights organizations around the world to show solidarity in freeing Alberto Coral,” and demanded that Donald Trump “tell the people of Colombia where Alberto Coral is, the son of the Colombian police officer who discovered the whereabouts of the world’s biggest cocaine trafficker: Pablo Escobar.”

jdt/rob/ifs