The National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Inpec) provisionally suspended for three months eleven officials of the La Paz Prison, in the Colombian municipality of Itagüí, Antioquia (northwest), due to irregularities after the scandal over a party held this week with inmates in that penitentiary center. One of the most remembered is that of La Catedral prison (Antioquia), where drug trafficker Pablo Escobar was imprisoned in the early 90s in luxurious conditions that evidenced the weakness of the State before his power. The director of Inpec, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Fernando Gutiérrez, said in a video released this Saturday after a surprise operation in that prison: "Eleven prison officials who were on duty at that time will be removed from their posts for not having fulfilled their function." As a result of the operation, the authorities seized unauthorized communication equipment, illicit substances, alcoholic beverages and other prohibited items within the prison. Among the suspended officials are ten constables and a lieutenant. The case occurs after it became known that a party was held inside the prison, in which vallenato singer Nelson Velásquez performed, in an event presumably not authorized by the Government and in which, according to complaints, there was alcohol consumption and the presence of prostitutes. For these facts, the Prosecutor General's Office (Public Ministry) opened an investigation to determine which officials allowed the artist's entry. La Paz prison, a medium and high security prison, houses the leaders of criminal bands in Medellín, some of them linked to the 'urban peace' dialogues promoted by the Government within its 'total peace' policy, which has intensified criticisms of controls in the prison system. This episode adds to others similar in Colombian prisons in recent decades.