[citation needed] Sabas Pretelt de la Vega was the Colombian minister of the Interior and Justice between November 2003 and September 2006.

Pretelt de la Vega was a member of President Álvaro Uribe's cabinet as Minister of Interior and Justice, being the first non-lawyer to occupy that position.

Prior to being a member of Álvaro Uribe's cabinet, Sabas Pretelt was between 1988 and 2003 the president of FENALCO, the Colombian National Association of Commerce.

In that quality, he also represented several times Colombia's employers in the Assembly of the International Labour Organisation and in other regional organizations such as ALAS, the Latin American Association of Supermarkets and the Food Marketing Institute of the United States, among others.

He has published numerous articles in newspapers and magazines and is the author of the books “San Andres: Centro Financiero Internacional” and “Privatizaciones, Apertura, y Desarrollo.”[citation needed] Due his involvement in the corruption scandal known as Yidispolítica he was banned from holding any public office for twelve years and was sentenced to six years in prison where he stayed in a naval base in Cartagena.