During the proceedings of the case, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) presented six witnesses, five of them prosecutors from Veracruz, to speak about the accusations of embezzlement, breach of public duty and forced disappearance in the common jurisdiction.
Denise Moreno Córdova, assistant prosecutor of the Coordination of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Disappearance of Persons in the state of Veracruz, reported that after the disappearance of a taxi driver in 2013 in Veracruz, Javier Duarte put obstacles in the way of knowing the truth in the case.
Among the arguments of the Attorney General’s Office, it also highlighted that Duarte used tricks to delay his processes, such as faking illnesses.
(Photo: Cuartoscuro)
Duarte is serving a nine-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to the crime of operations with resources of illicit origin.
Duarte was originally charged by Mexican authorities with organized crime. His crime was later reclassified.
Duarte de Ochoa was governor of Veracruz between December 2010 and October 2016, when he requested a license from the state Congress due to accusations against him of corruption and illicit enrichment. At that time, Flavino Ríos, who was its general secretary, assumed his position.
On October 25, 2016, Javier Duarte was expelled from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which supported him to win the Veracruz election in 2010. At that time, the politician already had a red Interpol file and was wanted by agents of the then Attorney General’s Office (PGR).
A few months later, in April 2017, the former PRI member was arrested in the town of Panajachel, in Guatemala, and then extradited to Mexico.
It was in 2018 when the PGR reclassified the crime against Duarte. The change was not minor. If he had stayed with the organized crime charge, he would have spent between 20 and 40 years in prison.
Instead, he only received a nine-year sentence, in which – according to his defense – he has completed the social reintegration processes.
Economist and politician, Duarte married Karime Macías Tubilla in 1999, who also has open investigation files in Mexico for alleged fraud committed in the State System for the Comprehensive Development of the Family (DIF) of Veracruz.
In 2018, the woman was captured by national media in London, England, for which authorities asked the government of the European country for her extradition. However, so far she has not been arrested.
In Mexico, the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) did block his bank accounts in 2022.
Karime is accused of leading a network of shell companies that operated during her husband’s administration.
At the time, Javier Duarte meant one of Enrique Peña Nieto’s great defeats, since the then president boasted of the then governor of Veracruz as part of a new and fresh generation of the PRI.
Duarte was tried to be linked to the murder of journalists, the disappearance of people and even the alleged provision of water instead of medicine to children with cancer in Veracruz. However, authorities only charged him with the crime of operations with illicit resources.
