The opposition leader in the Senate demanded that the president-elect, Abelardo De la Espriella, cease all persecution against the current head of state and desist from any attempt to extradite him, a claim expressed on several occasions by the far right.

The request of the legislator is included among others made after a presentation in which he questioned, through various arguments, the ability and willingness of the incoming ruler to comply with the sovereign precepts of the nation.

As part of his announcement, the congressman called on U.S. judicial authorities to explain whether it is true that two prosecutors from the District of Brooklyn, New York, are currently investigating President Gustavo Petro.

He also insisted that De la Espriella should end the persecution of political opponents and stop encouraging judicialization by the US Department of Justice.

The president-elect has reportedly sent lists of dozens of his fellow citizens, whom he considers his enemies, for investigation by US judicial authorities and has officially passed information to the Department of Justice, which he described as a mockery of the law and Colombian courts.

According to Cepeda, such arbitrariness requires a clear and forceful pronouncement of the Colombian courts and their magistrates who must defend the right to judicial sovereignty of the nation.

Cepeda assured that if the positions of the president-elect, which in his opinion constitute an affront to sovereignty, are not corrected, he will take the path of civil disobedience.

“As civil disobedience teaches us, when law, institutions or authority conflict with moral conscience, the citizen has not only the right but the duty to resist peacefully by refusing to collaborate with injustice, opprobrium or oppression,” he ruled.

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