The Colombian government on Wednesday fired the country’s police chief, General Henry Sanabria, weeks after the devout Catholic said he used exorcism and prayer to help him tackle crime and pursue drug lords.
Sanabria sparked a scandal in the middle of last month when he told an interviewer that he and other police officials were performing exorcisms to snag drug traffickers.
He also expressed his opposition to abortion — which is legal in Colombia, a secular South American nation with Catholic traditions — and to the use of condoms.
Photo: AP
During the interview his office appeared cluttered with crucifixes, effigies of the Virgin Mary and other Catholic symbols.
“I appreciate General Henry Sanabria’s hard work” for the Colombian police, Colombian President Gustavo Petro wrote on Twitter, without giving details about why he was removed from his post.
A police official speaking on condition of anonymity to a local media outlet said that Sanabria, who took over as chief in August last year, has been urging his subordinates to attend religious retreats.
Sanabria was recently implicated for negligence after a violent protest against an oil company in which two people died and 78 law enforcement officials were held hostage for days by protesters.
A government official said that Sanabria’s ouster was not “based on this operation” or his religious beliefs.
“The president himself has told the country very clearly that we respect freedom of thought, freedom of religion — not only for General Sanabria, but for all members of the institution and all Colombians,” Colombian Minister of the Interior Alfonso Prada told reporters.
Sanabria is to be replaced by retired general William Salamanca, who has been serving as consul general in Miami.
The outgoing chief last month told Semana magazine that exorcism and other religious practices had helped the police throughout the last 50 years of armed conflict, including police operations in which notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar was killed in 1993.
He said that in one operation a police officer had been able to kill a criminal by “praying while shooting.”
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