“It gives an account of the impunity that we have had from the Justice in crimes against humanity,” said Alicia Lira Matus, president of the Association of Relatives of Politically Executed (AFEP), about the nomination of Ángel Valencia as a candidate for Prosecutor National, in conversation with The counter.
The name of the lawyer, who also has well-known participations as a defender of the former judge in the Caval Luis Barría case –today formalized for sexual abuse– and also in the defense of a child rapist (all in the private sphere), after José’s previous failures Morales and Marta Herrera, will be defended by the Government in the Senate Constitution Commission next Monday, January 9 at 11:00 am and then voted in the Chamber at 4:00 pm. But that is not all that weighs on the jurist who aspires to direct the Public Ministry.
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“The group of relatives of Politically Executed, rejects the Government’s proposal to the Prosecutor of Mr. Ángel Valencia, it seems serious to us, who defended the former director of Carabineros Villalobos, in the Patricio Manzano case, died in torture and his link with the hardest right “, states the statement issued by the AFEP a few days ago and which bears the signature of Lira Matus, whose husband and brother were executed by the dictatorship.
From the AFEP they refer to the fact that Valencia defended the former general director of the Carabineros, Bruno Villalobos, in 2018, for events that occurred when he was 25 years old and was a lieutenant in the institution, in a Human Rights case. Villalobos was prosecuted as an accomplice —when he was a lieutenant— for the death of Patricio Manzano in 1985 (said prosecution was revoked in 2019).
Regarding the Manzano family, he assures that “it is emotionally very violent for them to see this appointment. He was not just a simple lawyer, he defended a person who was prosecuted, he even spent three days in jail.”
In addition, stressing that the AFEP is made up almost entirely of women, “the fact that it has defended a defendant convicted of raping an adolescent seems to us to be reprehensible.”
“With Mr. Abbott we said enough is enough,” he warns. “We are interested in a justice which, through national prosecutors, is impartial, transparent, that really complies with what the Law mandates. And not private or political corporations,” added the president of AFEP.
It is worth mentioning that next Monday the Senate will hear the proposal of the lawyer Ángel Valencia to head the National Prosecutor’s Office and immediately afterwards there will be a round of questions that arise as a result of the dialogue and the concerns or opinions that the citizenry sends through the space of citizen participation that was opened on the Senate website. (click here)
In the afternoon, a special Chamber session is scheduled for the senators to rule on the President’s office that requires the votes of 2/3 of the senators in office, that is, 33 favorable votes to be ratified.
