John Jairo Torres Torres, the former mayor of Yopal known as ‘John Calzones’, died this September 29 after being shot several times in an attack in Casanare. He was born in Trinidad, Casanare, and studied until the seventh year of high school. Before politics he was a women’s underwear merchant in Yopal: his store, Caricias Íntimas, started as an awning in front of the market square, and he got his nickname from that business. He was mayor of the capital of Casanare between January 2016 and September 2017, although he spent a good part of that time detained and suspended from office.
The attack occurred in the morningon his farm in the rural area of Yopal. Two men arrived on a motorcycle and shot him several times. The authorities They arrested a 17-year-old teenager; The other fled and is wanted.
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He was transferred to the Orinoquía Regional Hospitalwhere died while receiving medical attentionaround 12:23 pm, according to confirmed the governor of CasanareCésar Ortiz Zorro.
The Government of Casanare offered up to $50 million for information that allows the identification, capture and prosecution of those directly and indirectly responsible. According to information known to this newspaper, one of the lines that researchers review targets a man held in jail of Combita. So far there is no official conclusion about the motive.
It was not the first time that Torres spoke of threats. In 2014, when he was starting to build his housing project, he told Don Juan magazine that had suffered two attacks in one year and? had reported the threats to the Prosecutor’s Office.
Towers came to the Mayor’s Office with a criminal process open and he came out with a firm sentence. It also added a process for money laundering and illicit enrichment, a dismissal of the Attorney General’s Office and a statement of charges for the urban control of two housing projects.
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From commerce to the Mayor’s Office from prison
His name became known in 2014, when created the company Ciudadela La Bendiciones SAS to sell lots to the poorest people of Yopal. That year, Torres told Don Juan that he was planning a citadel of 140 hectares with about three thousand lots. The settlement ended up occupying about 75 hectares, most of it on the Claveles property, and today the Planning Secretariat of Yopal registers 4,720 properties in the titling process.
Torres claimed to have bought the land, but it was never in his name. Since 2012, the land was in the process of forfeiture, under the administration of the SAE. The brothers Néstor Leonardo and Jairo Enrique Pérez Barreto appeared as owners, with whom Torres signed a promise to sell in 2014. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the properties They were linked to front men of the drug trafficker Germán Sánchez Rey, alias ‘Coletas’.
On October 14, 2015, eleven days before the local elections, He was captured and transferred to the Modelo prison of Bogotá for illegal urbanization. He accepted the charges.
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Even so won the Mayor’s Office with 24,515 votes34.33 percent of the total, without leaving prison. It was endorsed by the La Bendiciones Social Movementwhich had the same name as the project investigated.
In December 2015 a judge granted him freedomand January 2, 2016 took office. Already as mayor, he said that he was not part of any criminal organization and that he had accepted charges for poor advice from his lawyers. “I’m not a bandit,” he said in that interview.
His administration did not last long without interruptions. In July 2016 went back to jailthis time for the money laundering process, and on August 19, the governor of Casanare ratified Luz Marina Cardozo Solano as acting mayor. Towers He was released in June 2017. due to expiration of terms and returned to the Mayor’s Office.
Conviction and release from office
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, since January 2014 Torres built the citadel on the San Rafael pathin the El Copey, Los Manantiales and Los Claveles sectors, without a license from the municipality’s Planning Secretariat. The work It was not provided for in the Planning Plan Territorial.
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Tried to retract acceptance of charges. His argument was that his lawyer at the time, former attorney general Mario Iguarán Arana, had advised him poorly. The judge did not accept the retraction.
In March 2017, the Third Criminal Court of the Yopal Circuit sentenced him to 45 months in prisonto a fine of more than $6,158 million at that time and an inability to hold public office.
On July 24, 2017, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice rejected the appeal of his defense, with a presentation by Judge Fernando Alberto Castro Caballero. With that decision, an absolute foul was established, which forced him to leave the Mayor’s Office.
The governor in charge of Casanare, Doris Bernal Cárdenas, He removed him from office by Decree 0257 on September 5, 2017 and appointed the general secretary of the municipality, Bradixon Calixto Gaitán, as manager. In the atypical election of November 26, 2017, Yopal chose René Leonardo Puentes Vargasfrom the coalition of the Democratic Pole and the Green Alliance, with 16,522 votes.
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The other files
The Prosecutor’s Office also He was charged with money laundering and illicit enrichmentalong with his wife, Dora Emilce López Vega. For the accusing body, Torres knew that the grounds of the citadel They had a measure for extinction purposes domain and knew of his link to drug trafficking through the alias ‘Coletas’.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Torres and his wife they had an unjustified increase in their assets of about $50,000 million between 2012 and 2015, derived in part from payments from lot buyers. Just the urbanization It was valued at $36 billion..
In the disciplinary field, The Attorney General’s Office dismissed him and disqualified him for 11 years.in a first instance ruling from June 2019, for irregularities in agreement 010 of 2016, of more than $3,086 million, for the School Feeding Program (PAE). The same sanction fell on the former Secretary of Education and Culture Fredy Alexander Estepa. According to the research, They delivered the agreement directly to the Somos Manos Unidas Foundation, without public bidding.
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On November 20, 2019, the Attorney General’s Office He issued a statement of charges against him for not exercising urban control about two housing projects, My New Jerusalem and The Blessing. Those projects They were built and occupied without planning licenses and affected buyers in good faith. The Public Ministry described the alleged offense as very serious, committed with intent. Former mayors Jorge García Lizarazo and Bradixon Calixto Gaitán appeared in that same document, as well as six other officials and former officials.
On June 24, 2020, the Attorney General’s Office annulled what was done from the document. The Delegate for Public Morality charged Torres Torres again and closed the investigation for the other eight officials.
The legalization of the citadel took almost a decade. With Resolution 248 of 2022, the Mayor’s Office of Yopal issued the urban legalization of the settlementand in 2023 bought the Claveles property from the SAE.
