Gustavo de Greiff

De Greiff explained that the Office of the Attorney General would investigate whether the actions of the clergy were carried out as part of its religious commitment or were part of a political agenda. Additional the National Committee of Victims of the Guerrilla (Spanish: Comité Nacional de Víctimas de la guerrilla (Vida)) had previously filed a formal complaint in August 1993 against Mgr Gómez Serna for presumed crimes of complicity and aiding and abetting subversion, likewise other complaints had been filed against other members of the clergy but had been filed away. After much deliberation, on March 27, 1994, de Greiff announced that his office was not competent to continue the investigations on the bishops and that the cases would be handed off to the Ecclesiastical court. The Office of the Attorney General arrived at this decision after convening with Chancellor Noemí Sanín, Inspector General Carlos Gustavo Arrieta, the Apostolic Nuncio, and members of the Episcopal Conference. The Office of the Inspector General found that the Office of the Attorney General could not investigate the bishops because of the existing concordat with The Holy See based on Article 19 of Law 20 of 1974 which states that members of the clergy can only be investigated by the ecclesiastical courts which are ruled by canon law, and that based on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties the Government of Colombia had to uphold the concordat even if there are constitutional grounds to investigate the prelates.

On June 20, 1994. de Greiff turned 65 years old. This usually celebratory event, however, brought on an investigation by the Colombian Supreme Court. According to Colombian law, members of the Judicial Branch undergo mandatory retirement when they reach the age of 65. Although the Attorney General was not directly part of the Judicial Branch, many believed the office should fall under the same constrains of the Judiciary. Additionally, the Fundamental Charter, which created the Office of the Attorney General, required that the Attorney General meet "the same qualifications required to be a magistrate of the Supreme Court". Magistrates from the Civil and Labour Chambers of the High Tribunal of the Court were of the opinion that the Attorney General should not be subject to the same norms as those of the high courts in the absence of any statutory law that would address the matter. In a final decision of 12 votes against 8, the Plenary of the Supreme Court determined that de Greiff would have to retire because of his age. de Greiff consequently retired on August 17 and received the Order of Military Merit Antonio Nariño from President Gaviria for his service to the nation. On May 4, 1995 the First Session of the Colombian Council of State overturned the decision of the Plenary Court by a vote of eight magistrates to zero with two abstaining. But the new decision did not change much, because President Ernesto Samper had already appointed Alfonso Valdivieso Sarmiento as new Attorney General and had appointed de Greiff as Ambassador to Mexico. Nevertheless, the decision set a precedent and clarified the role of the Attorney General.

The Office of the Attorney General was primarily in charge of the investigation against Escobar's escape and future apprehension, facilitating clues and aiding in his apprehension, de Greiff, however was under pressure from foreign governments who feared that his office was going to grant Escobar a deal to surrender which would not punish Escobar accordingly. This all ended on December 2, 1993, when Escobar was gunned down after he tried to escape when authorities discovered his location.

In November 1993, de Greiff attended the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, to discuss issues relating to drug policy. De Greiff became the center of attention and target of a very harsh and organized response by the American and Colombian Government after he made statements saying that fighting drug trafficking was a lost cause and that legalization of drugs would cut black market demand for them, arguing that the drug consumption in the United States fueled drug production in Colombia which fed violence.

De Greiff was at one point the toughest and most important partner the United States had in its war on drugs, but he had fallen from the grace of the Clinton Administration by November 1993 when he had come out in favor of legalizing the use of drugs, the Clinton administration had also come out against de Greiff's attempts to negotiate with drug lords and guerrilla members to surrender in exchange for reduced sentences, which the United States Department of Justice classified as "outrageous". A frustrated de Greiff in turn described the Clinton Administration's refusal to study legalization of drugs as "not an ostrich policy, but a McCarthyite, Stalinist, fascist policy", and when confronted by Senator Roberto Gerlein Echeverría on why he had gone to the United States to talk about drug legalization he responded: "You are right, Doctor Gerlein, when you say that my mistake was talking in the United States about legalization, but I suffer from a rare illness of the spine that prevents me from bowing before the powerful". This was the termination of the evidence sharing agreement between the two nations. For the United States, this was a direct result of the American Government's disapproval of de Greiff actions, this in turn forced the Colombian Government to come out in defense of de Greiff in spite of their own personal disagreements with the Attorney General, saying "the Government does not share any point of view, calling into question the sincerity and firmness of the Attorney General in its fight against drug trafficking". The United States and Colombia found themselves in a diplomatic row over de Greiff with the US Department of State and the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs exchanging letters, the U.S. calling de Greiff's intrusion in the case of Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera improper, while Colombia accusing Senator John Kerry of using his senatorial pulpit to damage the image of Colombia and misrepresenting de Greiff. In 1995 under a provision which denies entry into the United States to anyone believed to have assisted drug traffickers, the U.S. rescinded de Greiff's visa further preventing him to enter the United States after accusing de Greiff of having links to the Cali cartel, charges which he denied.

In 1992, as part of the changes in Government following the ratification of the 1991 Constitution, de Greiff was tapped for the position of Attorney General of the newly institutionalized Office of the Attorney General of Colombia, making him the top prosecutor of the nation. De Greiff was selected by the Supreme Court out of the ternary presented by President César Gaviria Trujillo, which also included Hugo Escobar Sierra and Guillermo Salah Zuleta (his former Deputy Rector, and subsequent successor at El Rosario University).

A lawyer who graduated from Our Lady of the Rosary University, de Greiff returned to his alma mater, where he worked as a Professor of Introduction to Law and Insurance Law at the Faculty of Law, later becoming Deputy Rector under Rector Roberto Arias Pérez and subsequently replacing him as the 115th Rector of the University on October 24, 1990, until April 1, 1991.

Gustavo de Greiff Restrepo (b. June 20, 1929 – d. July 19, 2018) was a Colombian lawyer, educator and activist, who served as Attorney General of Colombia during the Gaviria presidency and later as Ambassador to Mexico during the Samper presidency. He was an outspoken critic of the United States' War on Drugs in Colombia, and an advocate for drug liberalization policies.

De Greiff was born in Bogotá, D.C., on June 20, 1929, to Gustavo de Greiff Obregón and Cecilia Restrepo Piñeres. De Greiff was of Swedish descent by way of his father whose grandfather was Karl Sigismund Fromholt von Greiff, a Swedish engineer and geographer who moved to Colombia in 1825 and whose family had played an active role in the abdication of King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden. He was married to Inés Lindo Koppel, and they have five children together: Mónica, also a lawyer and ex-Minister of Justice; Natalia, an engineer and ex-General Manager of IBM in Colombia; Gustavo, who is the founder of Knee Voice; Pablo, a professor at NYU; and Veronica who married Ajay K Wakhool who is the chief of Neurointerventional Radiology.

De Greiff stirred up some Colombian officials of Catholic Church when he directly accused Monsignors Leonardo Gómez Serna, Bishop of the Diocese of Socorro y San Gil, Nel Hedye Beltrán Santamaria, Bishop of the Diocese of Sincelejo, Darío Castrillón Hoyos, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Bucaramanga, Luis Madrid Merlano, Bishop of the Diocese of Tibú, and Oscar Angel Bernal, Bishop of the Diocese of Girardota of direct links to the FARC. The accusations stemmed out of a private meeting Mgr Gómez Serna had with the 23rd Front of the FARC out of which he revealed that the Paramilitarists and not the FARC were responsible for recent attacks in the Vélez Province of Santander; de Greiff interpreted this meeting as advocating for the terrorist groups and accused the bishops of being relays of the FARC and criticized the Church for ignoring the law of Colombia which states that no person shall be in communication with the guerrillas be it the President of the prelates. The accusations drew quick condemnation from the Colombian Episcopal Conference, its President Mgr Pedro Rubiano Sáenz defended the bishops and vowed that the Church in Colombia would continue its duty of ministry to all baptised Colombians regardless of their occupation and alluded that what de Greiff was doing was ignoring the basic principle of the Constitution of Colombia which guarantees freedom of religion, and under that principle, bishops, priests or other member of the church can be in communication with its members. This incident escalated to international proportions when the Vatican's Nuncio to Colombia, Monsignor Paolo Romeo came out in defense of Mgr Gómez Serna and undermined the actions of the Prosecutor by comparing them to the ancient persecutions of the Church, "in other times the Church has seen its people taken to court and even sentenced to death" said the Nuncio and added "The lost sheep cannot return to its herd if one does not look for it.".