Before the Constitution Committee of the Senate, the criminal lawyer Jean Pierre Matus, candidate of the Government -elected from a shortlist- to replace the retired minister of the Third (Criminal) Chamber of the Supreme Court, Carlos Kunsemüller, presented on Tuesday.
Along with exposing his trajectory to assume the position, Matus responded to the questions, revealed by El Mostrador, of his detractors for being a direct advisor to the Commander in Chief of the Army in the trials for lack of probity and illicit enrichment with appropriation of money from the National Defense and, in particular, for his collaboration in commercial intermediation functions, undeclared, on behalf of the DINE (Directorate of Army Intelligence), before the company IBM, headquarters Colombia.
Faced with the questions of the president of the instance, Senator Pedro Araya (opposition), Matus initially said that the information was incomplete: “regarding the management so that the Army knew a crime prevention system, which exists, which is public, that IBM promotes it for all kinds of institutions, but especially for financial institutions and that when studying it I realized that it could serve for the problems that the Army had, I told the Commander in Chief that you have to take this because it will not reach you, it will not reach you with the Comptroller’s Office, it will not reach you yet with a special investigation that is done, because there is so much documentation, the documentation is not enough, you have to review the materiality of the purchases, it’s not going to catch up with him.”
“It needs something modern, something that exists to maintain near real-time control of anomalies. What do I mean by anomalies? A spare bulb for a vehicle in Arica appears to be quoted for, say, $5 thousand. And that same vial is listed in Coyhaique for $ 50 thousand. There is a problem. But the internal Comptroller’s Office, no more than it does investigations, is not going to find out about it. For that reason it is required, and for that is what large financial institutions have, a purchasing system with artificial intelligence, “he added.
“Well, then the commander in chief of the Army tells me that the person who has to do with the effective purchase of these things, with the review of this that is software is the director of the DINA in that Mr. Pedro Varela. So what did I do? Well, I made the initial inquiries. Can this system serve or cannot serve the Army? They don’t give me much of an answer, so I say excuse it to the person in charge but not to me, to Mr. Varela. And then they begin to entangle and intervene people who are not IBM in Chile, but are third companies that represent them. And at that moment the discussion is over, because that is not allowed,” he explained.
“And it’s over and there was never a conversation with them again. I do not know where they got those emails, but I please ask you to read what they say, the mutilated part, because the original information was said little less than that I had contacted a Colombian citizen to make this negotiation. And all of that is false. I did not contact any Colombian citizen. The IBM representative of the public chat writes, and I sent it to this committee, I wrote saying ‘this is the IBM person who is IBM’s representative for Latin America. And that person was the one who asked the person in charge of the purchases, at that moment General Varela, for the exhibition. And that exhibition was never carried out, because they tried, for some reason that I do not know, that third companies intervened and that what I understand cannot be done. In addition, that company had legal problems at the time with the Ministry of Defense,” he added.
“I did not participate in any purchase process. I did not make any quotes, I did not do any intermediation, I am not a representative of any company, I do not have any company that does those things, I am a lawyer. What I did, because it was my job and because I knew that they did not know, was to tell them that there are more efficient means than the periodic, extraordinary reviews of the Comptroller’s Office to avoid fraud in real time and not be as has happened to the institution during these years, answering for events of ten years ago, fifteen, twenty years, if not being able to avoid them effectively. That was my job and that’s what I did with them. I really understand your concern. I understand your concernHow a person who is outside the Army is going to participate in a purchase. Yes, he is right. But I have not participated in any purchase, in any offer to buy, in any offer to sell, none. I don’t have any people related to any company involved in those things. I’m not interested, it’s not my job. On the other hand, when if intermediaries wanted to intervene in that operation, all possibility of even making the presentation so that they knew him was over, “he closed.
