Colombia’s Supreme Court granted bail to former congressional leaders Iván Name and Andrés Calle in a bribery case alleging that legislators received money from a contract for water trucks intended for a drought-stricken region. The contract was worth 46.8 billion pesos, about US$14.5 million. The ruling lets the men await trial outside prison; it doesn’t clear them of the accusations.
Public contract, alleged payments
The indictment says senior officials in former president Gustavo Petro’s government agreed in September 2023 to pay the heads of both congressional chambers in exchange for support for pension and health reforms. It alleges that the money changed hands between 12 and 14 October 2023. Name was allegedly due 3 billion pesos, about US$927,000, and Calle 1 billion pesos, about US$309,000.
According to the indictment, the payments came from a loan, which a kickback from a contract for 40 water trucks later repaid. The trucks were meant for La Guajira, a desert region on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. The alleged scheme involved the UNGRD, the national disaster risk management unit responsible for relief after floods, droughts and earthquakes.
Name and Calle reject the accusations and remain presumed innocent unless a court rules otherwise. Olmedo López and Sneyder Pinilla, the agency’s former director and deputy director, are key witnesses. The source doesn’t report testimony from workers, residents of La Guajira, or organized groups affected by the water-truck contract.
The court’s deadline and conditions
The Supreme Court’s Special First Instance Chamber granted the defence request because the bribery trial hadn’t started within the 12-month legal limit. The charges became final on 7 October 2025, and the court said the deadline expired on 7 October 2026. The two men had remained in custody in the case since 7 May 2025.
The chamber said its own negligence hadn’t caused the delay and that the defence hadn’t stalled proceedings. Since March, it had heard 12 witnesses and worked to obtain documents ordered as evidence. The ruling, Auto AEP140-2026, applies Article 365 of Law 600 of 2000, which allows release when a trial hasn’t opened six months after charges become final, extending the limit to 12 months when the court has ordered evidence from abroad.
Bail isn’t automatic. Each man must post 10 monthly minimum wages, or 17,509,050 pesos, about US$5,400, in cash or through an insurance policy. Each must sign a written commitment and give an exact location where authorities can find him. The order warns that breaking the conditions could bring a fine and loss of release. La Picota prison in southern Bogotá must first check whether another authority wants either man.
Reforms, evidence and unresolved proceedings
The alleged payments were tied to support for pension and health reforms, but the bail decision concerns release while the case proceeds, not whether the alleged bribery occurred. The court hasn’t set a date for the trial hearing, and the report said it was unknown when Name and Calle would leave prison. Parties may seek reconsideration or appeal the order.
The chamber refused to release the men in April, ruling then that the deadline was 12 months rather than six. The Supreme Court’s Criminal Cassation Chamber upheld that decision on 22 July. Evidence still pending includes testimony from Carlos Ramón González, who headed the presidency’s administrative department under Petro and remains under investigation in the scandal. González has been in Nicaragua for more than two years; it’s unknown whether he will testify.
Separately, INPEC, Colombia’s prison service, ordered López and Pinilla moved from military bases to La Picota. In another case, a court barred Name from Congress for life over absences from Senate debates on pension reform. Neither proceeding changes the central status of the bribery case: no verdict date has been set, and the Supreme Court’s bail order is not a finding of guilt or exoneration.