The investigation of the prosecutor Gabriela Fossati advanced by leaps and bounds. At the end of September, she was kept awake by the adulterated items to obtain passports for Russian citizens and the role of the former head of presidential security, Alejandro Astesiano. Almost three months and dozens of statements later, Fossati opened three more investigations: irregularities in the hierarchy of the National Police, alleged spying on two opposition senators, and the leaking of confidential information to the press.
“Until this, I had never seen a topic occupy the newspapers for more than a week in Uruguay,” Court prosecutor Juan Gómez repeated on several occasions. One of the reasons for this to happen is that few investigations have advanced as quickly as this one. Despite having another 500 cases under study, Fossati took statements practically every day and requested the indictment of six people. One of them, Roman Karpov, the Russian citizen who was caught red-handed when trying to access a passport with his false entry, was sentenced through an abbreviated process.
This vertiginousness will be appeased and reduced to practically zero in the month of January, since the Major Judicial Fair will take place. Thus, judges and prosecutors take leave and only work when they have to be on duty. It is a kind of guard in which they only attend to urgent issues. Fossati’s will be the third week of January. However, if you are interested in furthering the investigation, you may do so.
Even so, the agenda of the Prosecutor’s Office does not stop. February will be a busy month in the Astesiano case. Not only because of the various statements that he already has set to take as soon as he returns from the judicial fair, but because he will have to make decisions regarding the future of the investigation. At the beginning of February, the precautionary measure of former vice consul Stéfano Di Conza expires. A few days later, those of Patricia Medina, the partner of notary public Álvaro Fernández, co-defendant in that case. A few days later, in the month of March, Astesiano, Alexey Slivaev and Fernández expire.
The expiration of the pretrial detention regime and the decision taken by the Prosecutor’s Office accordingly, mark the path of the investigation about passports. At that time, the Prosecutor’s Office may request its extension for up to six months. If you consider it so, you could also request its flexibility (for example, request that house arrest be imposed on you).
In each of these hearings, you must argue the importance of extending them and for that, you must justify each case. This implies giving new data on the progress of the investigation.
The term you choose and the measure will determine the future of that line of investigation, which already has a convicted person (Karpov). It is undoubtedly the most advanced: most of the information is already in the possession of the prosecution and all the alleged perpetrators charged. They were able to elucidate how the maneuver was carried out and described it in different judicial hearings.
During the fair, the investigation that will continue to advance is the one that investigates how confidential information about the rest of the cases was leaked. Prosecutor Fossati is also in charge of it and commissioned the Complex Facts department of the Police to take the statements, said the Director of Communications for the Prosecutor’s Office, Javier Benech.
Caras y Caretas reported that they will summon those journalists who have accessed confidential information to testify as witnesses. as he learned The Observer, there were lawyers for the case who have already attended to give their testimony and others will do so next week. The statements will be analyzed by the prosecutor when she returns to work.
Fossati is in charge of the investigation on the premise that neither she nor anyone on her team was the one who leaked the information. If there is any indication that a member of the prosecution team may have been responsible, the case will be transferred to another Prosecutor’s Office. This definition was endorsed by Juan Gómez, sources from the Court Prosecutor’s Office told The Observer.
The other two lines of investigation – that of alleged espionage and that of police irregularities – will also await the return of the judicial fair. The most advanced of the two is the one that falls on four police officers. They still remain under investigation and have not been charged, as have been the members of the gang that adulterated games.
The evidentiary standard to charge a person is relatively low (99% of the prosecutor’s requests on this are accepted by the judges, according to official information). But at the moment, the prosecutor has not requested it and is analyzing the statements that she has already taken and seeking to gather new evidence.
He had taken a similar position in the passport investigation, which he had been working on since January 2022. The first arrest occurred 10 months later when he was able to detect a case in flagrante.
