Justice did not grant the request of former Vice President Raúl Sendic to file the proceedings against him in the case for alleged irregularities in the truncated Gas Sayago project. Organized Crime Judge María Helena Mainard agreed to the proposal of prosecutor Luis Pacheco, who dismissed that request, they told The Observer case sources.
Pacheco affirmed that there is still pending evidence, since requests for information that were requested from Brazil by the construction company OAS (Brazilian consortium accused of paying bribes to leaders in exchange for public works contracts in the Lava Jato framework) have yet to be answered. . The prosecutor argued that in this instance and with the evidence that there is, it is not possible to access the file request. The judge’s decision was notified this Monday to the parties to the case.
Lawyers Laura Robatto and Homero Guerrero, defenders of Sendic, had requested on February 19 the file of the investigation that includes it. They argued that no “criminal conduct” was observed –as established by resolution number 951/2021 of the Transparency and Public Ethics Board–, and that the time that Sendic was involved in the management of Gas Sayago, as president of Ancap (owner of 20% of the company’s shares), was brief. They affirmed that there is a “notorious absence of criminal responsibility” of his defendant, for which he is “inappropriate” for him to continue to be linked to the case.
Testifying in this case in November, Sendic stated that he left Ancap in October 2013. “We had just awarded the construction of the plant. Everything else happened later. I had no direct participation in all subsequent events”, he told the press.
The lawyers pointed out that the case was expanded based on a “management audit report”, contracted by UTE – the other shareholder of the company with 80% – and carried out by the consultant Price Waterhouse Coopers LTDA, which was “severely questioned and dismissed “by the director representing the Broad Front, Fernanda Cardona. They also denounce that the hierarch wanted to transmit to the Justice a copy of the Gas Sayago liquidation report, but that “the directors of the majority did not accompany his proposal”.
When he testified before the Justice, prosecutor Pacheco asked Sendic specifically about the contracting of the OAS consortium, but the former vice president replied that when the contract was signed he was no longer at Ancap.
However, Justice will wait for more evidence to rule. In the complaint filed by UTE, sponsored by criminal Jorge Barrera, it was stated that there were four opportunities to cancel the project and save the State the expense it incurred, despite the fact that it was known to be unfeasible.
The first of these opportunities, according to Barrera, was in 2012, when Argentina decided to disassociate itself from the project. At that time, progress could already be interrupted and spending suspended. During that date, Sendic was still the president of Ancap.
