He has no problem talking about it. The wounds are healthy and he insists he has no secrets.
Adelina Guerrero, the wife of the Minister of the Interior, Armando Benedetti, spoke for the first time about a thorny issue that turned the country upside down, that shook the Foreign Ministry in Colombia and that, at the time, led the control organizations to set off the alarms: an episode of, apparently, domestic violence in Madrid, Spain, when he was Colombia’s ambassador to the FAO in Rome.
But he recalled that this event got out of control “because there were many people who got involved and should not have done so, including the media.”
According to her, Armando: “He never attacked me and never threatened me with a knife as they say. They are fascinated by saying that, but it’s not true. What he did do was break some of my personal belongings. What happened?” He and I had a 30-second argument and I left the place to calm things down. And he did what he did in that moment. As a result of this, a couple’s process began. “I never went out to speak to the media because I didn’t have to, but, when the issue got out of control, I had to clarify that he never attacked me or threatened me with a knife.”
He reported that The Madrid police arrived at the scene at the time of the events, where Armando Benedetti was enraged.
“The uniformed men called the embassy and it was leaked to the press. It was not through me. Armando himself reported that we were in a divorce process and we were with lawyers. It was a very difficult issue for me. I was very vulnerable because, in addition, I spent a month in a place that was not my city (Madrid), with my two small children. It was difficult. Many people tried to take advantage of my vulnerability.”
The crisis between the two hit rock bottom and that episode witnessed by Adelina Covo—Adelina Guerrero’s mother—caused a marriage breakup.
“I was separated from Armando for almost four or five months, but we spoke again two months later. He returned to Colombia, he underwent some tests, I made the appointment and accompanied him. I have a very great love for Armando. At that time we were not together; he was even at his parents’ house and I was at mine in Barranquilla, that is, he did not sleep at my house. But I accompanied him to his appointments, to a surgery because he had a pre-cancer. A As a result of that, he began to analyze and show that he had to change certain things. He had a real change in his life,” he said.
Today, in Guerrero’s opinion, Benedetti is another. And, although he has always been a present father and husband, today he is much more so, he said. Contrary to his past, he attends masses every Sunday, confesses before a priest in Barranquilla and constantly seeks spiritual help.
