The decision will be made by Judge Alejandro Asteggiante. If the request is approved, a prosecutor will have 20 days to decide whether to reopen the investigation.
The future of the case for irregularities in the construction of the Antel Arena will be defined this Friday, when the lawyers of the public telecommunications company of Uruguay substantiate the request for reexamination before the judge Alejandro Asteggiante, and he decides whether or not to give rise to the request coming from the president Luis Lacalle Pou.
When the prosecutor of Economic Crimes, Alejandro Machadofiled the case for Antel Arena By not having confirmed the existence of crimes in the process, a new front of battle or, if you will, of political and administrative dispute was opened for the government. To the point that Lacalle Pou himself got involved in the issue and asked the president of Antel, Annabela Suburú, that “all avenues are exhausted” in the investigation.
For this reason, the legal team of the state company requested the re-examination of the case and, this Friday, they must substantiate this request before Judge Asteggiante, who will finally decide whether to grant the possibility of another prosecutor reviewing the investigation in question. It is worth remembering that Machado recognized the existence of “sloppiness” and “wasteful management of public resources” in the stadium construction process, although he understood that none of this constituted a crime.
What will the audience be like?
Friday’s hearing will not include, in principle, the main political actors involved in the case, that is, without the former president of Antel Gabriel Gurmendez —who filed the complaint when he was in charge of the company—nor the mayor of Montevideo in license use Carolina Cosse, who promoted the project when he was also in charge of the organization; as reported by El País.
For his part, it is still unknown whether prosecutor Machado or any of his deputies will appear to give their opinion on the facts claimed by the government. In any case, he will not oppose the possibility of his investigation being reviewed, as he had previously anticipated.
The lawyers of Antel They will base the request for reexamination in two parts: on the one hand, they will argue with the evidence that exists, which they consider sufficient to request an indictment; and, on the other, they will point out that there is still evidence to collect. The truth is that it is not common for these types of requests to be denied.
If both the judge and the Prosecutor’s Office approve the reexamination, another prosecutor—in this particular case, the person in charge would be the prosecutor of 1st Shift Money Laundering, Enrique Rodríguez; who investigated the case when he was in charge of Economic Crimes—will have a period of 20 calendar days to study the file and decide whether to reopen the investigation or confirm its archiving.
Source: Ambito
