The deputy chancellor assured that there is evidence “of all the actions of the Foreign Ministry”, and that she did not give “any instructions to prioritize anything”.
The senator of the Broad Front, Mario Bergara, questions the Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Heber, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Francisco Bustillo, from 3:00 p.m. on Monday, for the granting of an official passport to the Uruguayan Sebastián Marset when the man accused of being a regional drug kingpin was in prison in Dubai.
When explaining how the process went, Bustillo disclaimed the political responsibility of the government in the matter and gave the floor to Deputy Foreign Minister Carolina Ache, who, as it had transpired, had maintained a meeting in Montevideo with Alejandro BalbiMarset’s lawyer in Uruguay, in which they discussed the process for granting said passport.
In principle, Ache indicated that “it is usual for the hierarchies to have this type of meeting with the legal representatives of those who request passports from abroad.”
“I have known Balbi for quite some time, I do not have a relationship, but I do know him because of the link with my family’s National Football Club,” clarified Ache Batlle, who “is a lawyer and great-niece of the former president of the republic Jorge Batlle? and niece of Eduardo Ache, former president of Nacional and Colorado leader.
The undersecretary reported in the Senate how was her relationship with Balbi, who is vice president of Nacional, for this matter. “On November 17, 2021, he requests a hearing via WhatsApp. He does not tell me the reason, he tells me that it is for a Foreign Ministry matter. I receive him on November 24, at the Foreign Ministry, in my office, I give him the meeting he requests in my office. And in that meeting, he asks me a question: the diplomatic bag for the United Arab Emirates when he was leaving », Ache relates.
The vice-chancellor replied to Balbi that “that bag has already left” and that “those bags leave once a month.”
“That is the content of that meeting. There is nothing more than that, ”said the leader of the Colorado sector Ciudadanos.
Ache responded to Bergara, who had questioned his previous statements, which had been published on Twitter. “I do not make statements to leave anyone alone; I make statements to tell the truth and this is the truth,” said the vice chancellor. The minister of the portfolio had highlighted minutes before that there are no reasons to distrust the veracity of Ache’s words.
“Balbi does not request”
In the Senate, the undersecretary continued the story of her meeting with the drug trafficker’s lawyer: “Dr. Balbi never asks me for any paperwork; if he had asked me, I would not have agreed, but he did not ask me, and there is evidence of all the actions of the Foreign Ministry, that in this case, of this passport, I gave absolutely no instructions to prioritize, speed up anything in any sense”.
Meanwhile, he stressed again that his words are not to give peace of mind. “This is how I handle myself in politics, in the Foreign Ministry and in life: with the truth. Whoever likes it likes it, whoever believes me believes me, it hurts whoever it hurts, this is the truth, “she said.
