Medellín, Colombia – Colombia’s former Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva reportedly met with U.S. officials in April seeking “international pressure” to remove his former boss, President Gustavo Petro, according to leaked audio reported by newspaper El País.
Audio recordings obtained by the newspaper revealed that Leyva sought meetings with several Republican Party politicians and President Donald Trump’s cabinet members, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Florida congressmen Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez.
Since the leak, Díaz-Balart dismissed accusations of his participation in a supposed coup plan.
“I laugh at the number of falsehoods and fabrications being spread about my frequent meetings with members of Colombian civil society. I’ve always met with individuals and groups from various parties with different points of view, including multiple officials from the current Colombian government, such as President Petro, ambassadors, among others,” the American congressman stated on X.
In the recordings, Leyva mentions meeting with Díaz-Balart.
“I was in the United States with a top-tier guy: Mario Díaz-Balart. The Díaz-Balarts are the ones behind the Secretary of State,” Leyva, 82, stated.
Image source: Cancillería Colombia.
“We need to sack that guy […] he’s lost control of public order. But that can’t happen without a great national agreement, in which the ELN (National Liberation Army guerilla group), the Clan del Golfo are included,” he added in a recording, using another name for the Gaitanista Army of Colombia (EGC), Colombia’s largest drug trafficking group.
Alleged close sources to Republican politicians also confirmed to El País that Leyva assured them of having a plan and the necessary resources to overthrow Petro, which included having Vice President Francia Márquez assume the presidency.
Leyva — a former Petro cabinet member — has not publicly commented on the matter. However, former journalist and right-wing presidential hopeful Vicky Dávila — who Leyva mentioned in his recordings as a person who could possibly lend support to his efforts — released an audio recording of a phone call she made to Leyva following El País’ revelations.
“I called former Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva to demand that he explain to the country why he mentioned my name and that of Miguel Uribe in the recordings published by El País of Spain, and its report about an alleged plan to overthrow Gustavo Petro,” Dávila shared on social media, referring to another right-wing presidential pre-candidate, Miguel Uribe Turbay, who was shot in June and is fighting for his life in a Bogotá hospital.
Image Source: Vicky Dávila via X.
Read more: Assassination attempt on Colombian senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe.
Leyva responded, “I want it to be clear that I am not a coup supporter; my father was the victim of a coup, and we had to go into exile. I was a part of the [1991] Constitutional Assembly, and I limit myself to defending the Constitution and the law.” Leyva’s father, Jorge Leyva Urdaneta, served as Minister of Public Works during the 1953 coup led by dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla.
Also in the audio, Leyva asserted that Dávila would not be elected president, but that her leadership required her inclusion in his “great national agreement” plan.
According to El País, Colombia’s secret service was aware of the recordings and had shown them to President Petro in May, after which Petro made several references to an alleged coup in public events and on social media, without sharing more information.
Following El País’ story, it would seem Petro was referring to Leyva when he mentioned coup-plotters.
“I know that a certain far-right leader in Colombia has been speaking with the [American] Secretary of State. And I also know that there is a recording out there — which I played for the Attorney General [Luz Adriana Camargo] — in which a certain far-right figure in Colombia […] is allied with drug trafficking, seeking to mobilize people and forces to carry out a coup,” the head of state said at a June 11 event in Cali, Colombia, in what now seems like a reference to Leyva.
The relationship between the president and his former minister fractured publicly in April, after Leyva shared a letter in which he argued Petro was unfit to lead Colombia because he was addicted to drugs.
Read more: Former minister says Colombia’s President Petro addicted to drugs, provides no proof.
On July 1 the Colombian presidential office issued a statement pleading respect to Colombia’s sovereignty and constitutional order.
Image Source: Presidencia de Colombia via X.
Petro, on the other hand, has now explicitly denounced Leyva’s actions as a conspiracy with links to drug traffickers and the far right in both Colombia and the United States during the Financing for Development Conference in Spain.
“This is not a crazy plan, Leyva is not a madman. He is hateful and arrogant, and joined forces with others who are also full of hatred and arrogance. The dangerous part wasn’t the U.S. Secretary of State; Marco Rubio was not really involved. The most dangerous aspect of Leyva’s strategy is that he connected two armed groups: the Clan del Golfo and the ELN,” the head of state wrote on X Tuesday.
Featured image credit:
Image: Álvaro Leyva.
Source: Álvaro Leyva via X
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