The son of late drug lord Pablo Escobar says he is "outraged" that he and his mother have been charged with money-laundering in Argentina – a move he described as judicial "bullying" based on their identities.
"I am outraged and dismayed because I feel that all our human rights are being violated," Juan Sebastián Marroquín Santos told the La Nación newspaper. "We are definitely not seeing due process."
Marroquín Santos, 41, has been living in Argentina since December 1994. He and his mother, María Isabel Santos Caballero (the name was adopted by Victoria Henao Vallejos, the wife of the leader of the Medellín cartel), face charges of laundering drug money, though they have not been remanded in custody by Néstor Barral, the federal judge in charge of the case in Morón, Buenos Aires province.
Former Boca Juniors player Mauricio "Chicho" Serna has also been charged.
Marroquín Santos described the move as "judicial and media bullying," with "our identities, relationships and nationalities as the only evidence."
He argued that "if we took the name Pablo Escobar Gaviria from this case, no-one would have even been called to give a statement."
Cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar Gaviria became one of the richest men in the world, according to Forbes, after building an empire fuelled by his drug-trafficking. He was shot dead in 1993.
- TIMES/AFP
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