President Gabriel Boric addressed the statements of the so-called Puebla Group – made up of 29 Ibero-American leaders – who released a letter expressing their support for Marco Enríquez-Ominami – one of the founders of the organization – and questioning the postponement of the oral trial for the SQM case. Among the signatories who question the Chilean justice is the Argentine president Alberto Fernández, with whom there was recently another controversy.
“It is difficult for me to get into these controversies, from here, the only thing I can say is that I respect the institutions and I expect the same from my colleagues,” said President Boric, from the Biobío Region, where he arrived to deliver the first emergency housing for victims of the forest fires that burn the center-south of the country.
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“I understand that my justice minister has already referred to the issue, but I am not going to escalate into controversy when the emergencies are elsewhere, particularly here in the territory,” President Boric added, specifically from Punta Lavapié, Arauco commune.
Especially harsh was the Minister of Justice, Luis Cordero, who pointed to the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, one of the 29 Ibero-American leaders who signed the letter, which denounced an alleged maneuver by judges and lawyers close to former President Sebastián Piñera to postpone the trial.
In statements broadcast by Radio Biobío, Cordero said that he would not “dare to comment on the performance of the judges of the Argentine Justice.”
“I manage to understand letters of this type as political support, but from the institutional point of view, the content seems inappropriate and improper,” said the secretary of state.
And he added: “It seems to me that he does not know elementary issues of the functioning of the criminal prosecution system in Chile and, therefore, the Executive not only respects, but promotes and protects the judicial independence and autonomy of the Public Ministry.”
This is the second controversy between the Chilean government and the Argentine government in the last month after the leak during the last CELAC summit of a controversial audio involving the Chilean Foreign Ministry and the Embassy of Argentina in Chile.
In the letter, also signed by former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the group denounces that “since 2015, Marco Enríquez-Ominami has been accused by prosecutors directly linked to former right-wing President Sebastián Piñera.”
“During these 8 years, Marco has denied these accusations and has asked to attend a fair trial, with impartial judges, where he can prove the falsity of the accusations. However, full-time prosecutors, and with great media and financial support, have been delaying the trial,” they criticized.
In this context, they expressed their disappointment with the decision taken this week, in which the opening of the oral hearing was postponed again with an argument that they considered pilgrim.
The letter concluded with two paragraphs in which the signatories said they were sure that “truth and justice will finally prevail. That Marco will defeat this accusation as he has in 12 other attempts by conservatives to accuse him of different crimes.”
In addition to that of the Argentine president and the former Spanish president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, in the letter appeared the signatures of Latin American leaders such as the Colombian Ernesto Samper, the Ecuadorian Rafael Correa, the Panamanian Martín Torrijos and the Bolivian Evo Morales.
Celso Amorim, former Brazilian Foreign Minister and current international advisor to President Lula da Silva, was also signed by the president of the RR.EE Commission of the Senate of Mexico, Beatriz Paredes, as well as jurists from Clajud, led by former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón.
The SQM scandal erupted in 2015, during the second government of President Michelle Bachelet, and investigates the illegal financing of candidates and political parties with payments from the company Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile to people related to them for services never rendered.
The case began to be investigated at the end of 2014, in the framework of the investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office of Chile for a similar case of false invoices, known as “Penta case”.
According to the aforementioned media, the controversy over the opening of the Oral Trial “has already been settled by the Court of Appeals of Santiago, which ordered to open a summary against of judges of the Eighth Court of Guarantee of Santiago and the Third Court of Oral Trial of Santiago, for possible negligence”.
Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola also addressed the issue, confirming that she addressed the issue with Argentina’s ambassador to Chile, Rafael Bielsa, and said that “it seems to us that the statements in that letter are absolutely inappropriate.”
But President Boric’s government was not the only one that responded to the Puebla Group’s letter. The Public Ministry also referred to the letter in support of MEO and described it as “inadmissible.”
“We consider inadmissible the expressions expressed in the aforementioned statement and we want to reaffirm the professional and objective character with which the prosecutors who exercise criminal prosecution in our country act, who do so with strict adherence to the Constitution and the laws, in an institutional context of autonomy and independence,” said the Prosecutor’s Office.
President Boric toured the sector of Punta Lavapié, a place affected almost entirely by fires
In the afternoon the President of the Republic, Gabriel Boric Font, accompanied by the liaison minister of the Biobío region, Carlos Montes, and local authorities, arrived at the Punta Lavapié sector in the commune of Arauco, in order to review on the ground the progress of the installation of emergency housing that began to be built on Tuesday.
In addition, the President toured the remains of what was the Jorge Iván Valenzuela School, affected in its entirety and where more than 140 girls and boys lost their study space.
“We can’t let our guard down. This week high temperatures are coming and we have red alert in certain sectors, where prudence tells us that we have to stay alert, “he said.
He added: “I have no doubt that we will recover what has been lost. Now, there are things that are not recovered, the lives of the 25 deceased people, the history, the memories, the smells of home. And that is why the work we have to do must also be very human, it is not only about numbers of people, it is not only the 63 homes of Punta Lavapié or the 3,242 victims. Behind each of those numbers there is a story, there are memories, there are smells and flavors that are also important to empathize.”
Check out the statements of President Gabriel Boric.
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