Petro’s Defamation lawsuit against Daniel Noboa!
Petro was linked to the ecuadorian drug trafficker known as Fito by Daniel Noboa, Ecuador’s president!
Bogotá, Apr 19 (EFE).-
Colombian President Gustavo Petro will file a defamation suit against his Ecuadorian counterpart, Daniel Noboa, after he claimed that during a visit to Manta in 2025, the Colombian president met with a group of people allegedly linked to drug trafficker José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias Fito.
”I have decided to file a criminal lawsuit against President Noboa for defamation,” Petro wrote on Sunday on X.
Noboa’s claim, made in an interview with the Colombian magazine Semana in which he did not confirm a direct meeting between Petro and Fito, was rejected by the Colombian president, who denied any connection and asserted that his presence in Ecuador on that occasion was solely for official business.
In that interview, Noboa stated that Petro “met with members of the Citizen Revolution, and some of those members have ties to alias Fito,” referring to the Ecuadorian political movement linked to former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017), who is currently in the opposition.
Petro responded to those statements by defending his visit to Manta, where, as he explained, he traveled in May 2025 after attending Noboa’s second presidential inauguration in Quito.
He asserted that throughout his stay, he had the constant protection of the Ecuadorian Army, as well as his Colombian security detail.
“Noboa himself gave the order, as it should be, for the Ecuadorian Army to protect me at all times, day and night, in Manta, where I went on the day of his inauguration, which I attended, and he treated me with disdain simply because I called for the release of political prisoner Jorge Glas, a Colombian citizen and former vice president of the Republic of Ecuador,” Petro added.
Petro’s visit to Manta was not on his itinerary and came to light through press reports, following which unconfirmed rumors emerged that the president had allegedly met in that city with alias Fito, the country’s most dangerous drug trafficker, who was captured a month later and extradited to the United States.
Petro emphasized on Sunday that both his bodyguards and other witnesses can attest to his activities during that trip, and he rejected the notion that his presence in that city could be interpreted as evidence of irregular contacts.
”I don’t know if going somewhere in Ecuador implies suspicion of shady contacts. Manta is a beautiful place worth visiting,” said the Colombian president, who is currently traveling in Spain.
He also noted that he stayed in a wooden cabin without “luxuries or extravagance” and that even Colombian journalists visited the site without finding any evidence to support the accusations against him.
This episode adds to other disagreements between the two presidents, reflecting the deterioration of bilateral relations, which in recent months has also escalated to the commercial sphere, with the mutual imposition of tariffs and the recall of both ambassadors for consultations. EFE
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