The newly sworn-in president of Colombia, Abelardo De la Espriella, has ordered the immediate transfer of 117 "high-profile" inmates related to the peace negotiations with armed groups. The decision aims to reinforce security in the country's prisons and dismantle any criminal structure that these inmates may have woven from within the penitentiary centers.
True to his promise to apply a maximum pressure policy against drug trafficking, De la Espriella has made this move one of his first government measures, sending these prisoners to high-security prisons.
"The measure seeks to strengthen prison control, raise security conditions, and contain any capacity of criminal structures to maintain, coordinate, or strengthen their activities from within the prisons," added the note from the Presidency.
During his inauguration in Cali on Friday, the president sent a direct message to the armed groups: "You have two paths," he warned, alluding to the dilemma between accepting the legal framework or facing the state's response. "Submit to the empire of the law or face the determined force of the Colombian state and its public force," he warned, before resorting to one of the main symbols of his campaign: "Let them not be mistaken, the tiger has arrived and they will know how hard it bites when it comes to defending the Colombian people."