Nicaragua’s government has granted political asylum to Colombia’s fugitive former spy chief, who is wanted by justice over his alleged role in the embezzlement of public funds.

The government of Daniel Ortega announced this after Colombia’s ambassador to Managua requested the extradition of former DNI director Carlos Ramon Gonzalez.

In response, the Foreign Ministry said that it “doesn’t agree with the decision” and asked the Nicaraguan government to revoke the visa “so Mr. Gonzalez can surrender to Colombian justice.”

According to the Foreign Ministry, Gonzalez falsely claimed to be the victim of political persecution and is supposed to be in jail for “the alleged commission of common crimes defined in Colombian criminal law.”

A Bogota judge ordered the arrest of the former spy chief because of his alleged involvement in the embezzlement of public funds from disaster management agency UNGRD.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, Gonzalez ordered two former UNGRD directors to bribe the former president’s of the Senate and the House of Representatives when he was the director of Petro’s administration department in 2023.

The money embezzled from the UNGRD was meant to finance the 2023 political campaign of the daughter of former Senate President Ivan Name.

Both Name and Gonzalez were prominent members of the Green Alliance, a liberal political party that is part of Petro’s coalition in Congress.

Petro and his former spy chief have known each other for decades as both were members of the guerrilla group M-19 until the demobilization of this group in 1991.

According to the president, Gonzalez can count on the sympathy of the Nicaraguan government because he fought in the Sandinista revolution that ousted the dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

Petro and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega have since become political adversaries because the latter “turned on the Sandinistas that carried out the revolution against Somoza” and destroyed the democratic rule that was introduced after the revolution.