The former chancellor Francisco Bustillo declared before the Attorney General’s Office in the framework of the investigation for the delivery of a passport to the Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastian Marset, thus adding his first public appearance after resigning on Wednesday. At the exit, as he had anticipated, he did not make any statements but did deliver a statement.
“I had no participation whatsoever, nor even knowledge of the processing of Mr. Marset’s passport,” said Bustillo in the last of the seven points that make up the statement he gave to the press upon leaving the Prosecutor’s Office, after clarifying that there is reservation about their statements. “In Parliament, I was not untruthful,” he emphasized.
The writing consists of “clarifications” by the former chancellor regarding the events known from who was his second in command. Ministry of Foreign Affairs until his resignation, precisely, due to the Marset case. “The exchange of messages between Guillermo Maciel and Carolina Ache are private communications and do not constitute official documentation”, begins as point number 1, and adds that he became aware of them hours before the interpellation, a reason that led him to initiate an administrative investigation.
He then explains that, within the framework of that investigation, Ache was asked three times to provide the messages, but he refused each time; on the third opportunity, with the former vice chancellor’s lawyer, Jorge Díaz, present. “Tired of Ache’s repeated and continuous statements, and to end this dialogue that in no way linked me, is that I figuratively told him to ‘lose’ the phone. in the conversation she surreptitiously recorded, isolating and decontextualizing what had been happening all that time, during which he constantly raised his doubts with me,” Bustillo said in the text, adding that “later, when he was required to deliver the messages to the contentious administrative justice system, he told me in writing that “I would only do it if I ordered it.”
In the following points, the former head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalls that at the time of the issuance of the Uruguayan passport to Marset, he was Ache who was in charge of the portfolio since he was on an official mission abroad. “In short, the processing of the passport by the MRREE was adjusted to the regulatory framework in force on that date (Decree 240/018),” he noted.
Bustillo appeared as an investigator before the prosecutor for Economic and Complex Crimes, Alejandro Machadoan instance in which the Minister of the Interior already declared, Luis Alberto Heber; the vice minister of the interior, Guillermo Maciel; and the former vice chancellor Carolina Achewho unleashed a scandal within the government by denouncing that there were attempts to hide chats about the delivery of the passport.
It is worth remembering that ache stated that on December 14 Bustillo asked him not to hand over messages from WhatsApp yours with Maciel that referred to the danger of giving the passport to Marset.
“Let him be sent to the front Maciel, “I lost my cell phone,” he said. Bustillo, according to the audios of the former vice chancellor that were published by the weekly Busqueda. The dissemination of this data generated problems within the government and, after becoming known, the Prosecutor’s Office decided to elevate the case to the Office of Purification, Prioritization and Allocation (DPA) to open another investigation.
Controversy over the appointed interim chancellor
After the departure of Bustillo, was appointed as interim chancellor Diego Escuder, at least until the president returns Luis Lacalle Pou of his trip through USA. However, the election generated controversy because the new leader, who until yesterday was general director of the Secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was mentioned by ache as one of the participants in the meeting where the chats were discussed.
In any case, it emerged that the role of shield is interim and one of those in the running to be ratified in the position is Carlos Enciso, who today serves as ambassador of Uruguay in Argentina. Meanwhile, the one who remained in his position was the vice chancellor Nicolas Albertoni.
Source: Ambito
