MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Former Colombian FM says Petro has a drug problem

Petro replied that he was addicted to love

Former Colombian Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva caused an international uproar when he published a letter saying President Gustavo Petro has a drug addiction problem. He insisted he noticed the matter during a joint official trip to France in 2023.

During that mission, Petro’s whereabouts were unaccounted for two days, although Layva claimed the French secret service was in the know. “As if French intelligence was incompetent enough not to have known your whereabouts. Embarrassing moments for me as a person and as your chancellor. And even more so when I found out where you had been,” Leyva claimed.

“It was in Paris where I was able to confirm that you had the problem of drug addiction. But what could I do? Surely I was inferior. I should have approached you, helped you, assisted you in a timely manner. I keep in my heart the regret of not having tried to reach out to you. The truth is that you never recovered. That is the way it is. Your recovery, unfortunately, has not taken place,” Leyva said in a four-page letter on X.

Petro denied these claims, humorously stating he is “addicted to love” and attributing his absence to spending private time with family, as corroborated by his daughter Andrea Petro, who lives in France. “His favorite pastime was being with my daughters, being a grandfather without distractions. Guilty of disconnecting him a little? I assume so. We were just looking for a peace that they don't allow over there,” she added.

Colombia's first-ever leftwing president also cited health reasons—esophageal cancer surgery in Cuba in 2020—preventing alcohol consumption, indirectly refuting substance abuse allegations. No concrete evidence beyond Leyva’s statements has been reported to substantiate the allegations.

”We fell in love a lot. I'm going to say that we are addicted to love. By the way, why are you missing two days (in France), partner? You don't have to think much (...) What happens is that the writer (Leyva) can no longer do that,“ said the president with laughter.

”All those tweets that are going around that I'm drunk, well, unfortunately, I can't get drunk. I used to like Tapa Roja del Tolima brandy. They put those drinks in my mouth, and it burns me to my soul. So it's not because I don't want to, it's because I can't,” he insisted.