The prosecution of the former commander in chief of the Army, Oscar Izurieta Ferrerby the visiting minister of the Court Martial, Romy Rutherfordfor embezzlement of public funds and forgery of a military document, has added a new edge, the retired general admitted a series of crimes.
As reported The Third PM, Izurieta told the judge that he was part of diversions of money that were intended for intelligence activities to pay for other actions outside the institution, such as satisfying the requirements of the dictator’s family, Augusto Pinochet.
“In his early years, part of the reserved spending resources went to General Pinochet and his family, since he spent a lot of money, because he was a person that many people would have wanted to die before his natural death,” said the former commander-in-chief of the Army to the visiting minister.
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In the details of the processing, it was indicated that these Pinochet expenses included having personnel at his disposal, such as doctors, nurses and escorts.
Izurieta expressed in his account that the dictator’s family was linked to the Army Garrison Command of the Metropolitan region, there “they were in charge of maintaining the entire escort, health and support system for the people who guarded and cared for to General Pinochet”.
The former military authority explained that the number of personnel at Pinochet’s disposal was decreasing over time, but “a significant amount of reserved spending resources was allocated for this purpose.” Although everything was justified “in the supreme decree that endorsed guarding the former commanders in chief.”
The former Secretary General of the Army, Andres Avendano -was also part of the investigation- indicated that “plaques, arrangements and works of the funerary plaque were paid, all related to the death of General Pinochet, despite the fact that in the end it was not taken care of”.
“Sometimes General Pinochet’s wife (Hiriart) called him requesting some financial aid and he admits that she gave him the resources or sent them to someone, a fact that occurred perhaps on two occasions in which he gave him a million pesos each time. “Izurieta told Rutherford.
Other uses of reserved expenses
Óscar Izurieta also admitted that the reserved expenses were used for activities with editors, journalists and columnists, in order to ensure that the information does not damage the image of the Army.
In addition, he pointed out that he created a model of gifts for military weddings, classifying the importance of the people involved in A,B,C. For example, gift “A” consisted of cutlery that cost approximately 90 thousand pesos.
On the other hand, the former uniformed officer indicated that he received between 70 to 72 million in reserved expenses in an envelope with cash, while he requested six million more. “All that money was never deposited in his checking account or on his credit card,” the judge said.
Izurieta admitted having received money from reserved expenses when he was former commander in chief for an amount of 800 thousand pesos per month from April 2010 to July 2017.
