Colombian ex-foreign minister charged over nanny's lie detector test

What the report says

Colombian prosecutors have charged former foreign minister Laura Sarabia with abusing her authority in a case tied to a lie detector test given to her former nanny. The BBC reports that the allegation stems from a 2023 dispute over cash said to have gone missing from Sarabia’s apartment, when she was serving as chief of staff to President Gustavo Petro.

According to the article, prosecutors say Sarabia directed police to question the nanny, Marelbys Meza, and that this involved the improper use of state resources for a private matter. Meza has said she was taken to an official building near the presidential palace and made to take a polygraph test, which she described as frightening. She has denied taking any money.

Sarabia, who later became foreign minister and then Colombia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, has denied wrongdoing. The BBC notes that she resigned as chief of staff in June 2023, and that the controversy first became public when Semana magazine reported on the incident. The case is significant because Sarabia was one of Petro’s closest advisers, and the charges add to scrutiny of how senior officials may have used police or other state powers in a personal dispute. More broadly, polygraph evidence is not generally considered conclusive in many legal systems, though the specific legal weight of the test in this case was not detailed in the report.