The party in power, which last year was hit by the complaints and subsequent preventive detention of the senator Gustavo Penadés for 22 cases of abuse and rape of minors, is once again suffering the impact of that scandal with a new chapter that includes Iturralde and controversial chats with the former legislator and the judicial treatment of his complaint.
Iturralde resigned on Thursday hours after the weekly Busqueda published messages with Penadés in March of last year – when the complaint against him had been formalized – in which he analyzed the convenience of the prosecutor Alicia Ghione was appointed in the case and the possibility of putting pressure on the Court’s attorney general, Juan Gomez.
The controversial chats between Iturralde and the then senator Penadés
The first exchange between Iturralde and Penadés was on March 30, 2023. In it, the former president of National Party revealed that he pressured the first appointed prosecutor, Mariana Alfaro.
“This is a great HDP. It was the one that requested the raid on Blue for rape issue and it is with issue Ocean. I shot him to death today and he shit. “He understood the msg (sic),” Iturralde wrote to Penadés, who at that time was one of the leaders of the National Party.
“The next one is Ghione. If there is a logic, they should give it to her. “Ghione is my friend,” she then indicated. Penadés replied: “I hope.”
What the president of the board of directors of the National Party what he predicted actually happened and, the next day, Alfaro appealed the Prosecutor’s Office decision. “They gave it to Alicia Ghione. She just called me. She asked me for your number,” Iturralde wrote to Penadés on March 31. “She is totally trustworthy. Great guy,” he stressed.
The president of National Party He also revealed pressure on Attorney General Juan Gómez. “He is a big shit and he knows very well that Alicia is ours because I spoke a thousand times with Jorge Díaz, who had her immersed. You have to pressure it. You have to push him or he will shit and leave,” he continued.
Iturralde’s resignation in the middle of the electoral campaign
“By virtue of the disclosure of a private and personal conversation and in order not to compromise my colleagues, nor the institutional functioning of my party, I have made the decision to resign from my position as President of the Board of Directors of the National Party“Iturralde communicated through social networks.
The departure of one of the greatest white leaders shocked the campaign, not only within the nationalist ranks but also in the opposition, which immediately criticized the president’s strength. Luis Lacalle Pou.
“The worst of all is that the suspicion remains that someone could have operated (in the Penadés case),” said the pre-candidate and favorite for the Frente Amplio (FA), Yamandú Orsi. “There must be explanations regarding the scope of political actions on judicial institutions,” he claimed.
Carolina Cosse, for its part, stated: “that the president of a political party tries to pressure Justice is a serious fact” and added that “it can lead to a political crisis that affects the institutions.” “It is not what citizens expect or deserve from politics or politicians,” he continued.
Alvaro Delgadocandidate for National Party and former Secretary of the Presidency, described the action of the President of the Board as “correct, prudent and brave” and highlighted the scandalous chats as “a private and personal conversation, which does not involve the party.”
The other main contender of the PN, whose sector former senator Penadés belonged to, Laura Raffo He stated “that there can be no doubts or suspicions about the impeccability, transparency, ethics, of our board, therefore I believe that he made the decision he had to make.”
How is the Penadés case continuing?
Prosecutor Alicia Ghione, involved in the investigation of the case of former senator Gustavo Penadés, questioned whether she will continue in it after chats between the former president of the National PartyPablo Iturralde and the accused of crimes of abuse and exploitation of minors, in which they spoke of her as a “friend.”
In April, the court extended the preventive detention of former senator Penadés for 180 days, who continues to follow the judicial path in the case in which he is accused of 22 crimes of sexual abuse and rape against minors.
Source: Ambito
