The Frente Amplio legislators Charles Carrera and Mario Bergara, the nationalists Jorge Gandini and Sebastián Da Silva, and the director of Coexistence and Citizen Security, Santiago González, referred to the issue.
astesiano was sentenced to four years and six months in prison for the continuous crimes of conjunction of personal and public interest, criminal association, disclosure of secrets and influence peddling, for all the causes in which it was investigated.
The opposition to the conviction of Astesiano
Bergara pointed out that the agreement between the former head of presidential custody and the Prosecutor’s Office “confirms crimes such as criminal association, conjunction of public and private interest, influence peddling”, that is, “crimes that obviously involve corruption”.
The legislator remarked the responsibilities, not criminal, but political of “having put someone with a background as complicated as Astesiano’s in that place of power despite the fact that the president received alerts from his co-religionists.”
Bergara pointed to the deputy secretary of the Presidency, Rodrigo Ferrés, whom he pointed out as “institutional manager of the president’s custody team.”
For his part, Carrera wrote on his Twitter account that with the conviction of Astesiano “It has been shown that ‘a criminal association’ operated in the Executive Tower, in addition to the political responsibility of the authorities”. “Everything under the nose of the president himself. We will see how the investigation continues as there are more responsible,” he added.
Bergara and Carrera had filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor’s Officeafter La Diaria published WhatsApp conversations in November in which From Vertical Skies (Lunacar SA), a company dedicated to providing security and risk management solutions, Astesiano was asked to create two files with personal information about the senators.
The government’s reaction
“Justice expressed itself and Mr. Astesiano recognized”, therefore “a formal stage is closed”, said the nationalist senator, Jorge Gandini. At a press conference, he pointed out that “Justice expressed itself as it expressed itself a few days ago“ when he indicated that “there was no espionage in the follow-up” the current president of the PIT-CNT, Marcelo Abdala, and that “There were no criminal consequences of what was linked to Liceo 41.”
The episode with Abdala refers to that Astesiano used the system of video surveillance cameras of the Ministry of the Interior to document the movements of the trade unionist, the day of his accident in Punta Carretas and sent the images to the Ministry of the Interior.
Then, The former head of security shared with the executive director of the Police, Jorge Berriel, the graphic material with the route of the car before the crash and sent an audio to the private secretary of Lacalle Pou, Nicolás Martínez: “You have to kill this son of a bitch.”
This Wednesday, once the investigation was concluded and Astesiano was sentenced, the director of Coexistence and Citizen Security, Santiago González, indirectly alluded to the form of opposition of the Broad Front and He stressed that “not everything is worth it.”
“We persecuted legislators to threaten them and make them not make complaints. We followed teachers and the president of the PIT CNT. We did illegal wiretapping. There were drugs in fish. We abused, they said. None of that happened. Is anyone going to apologize for the false accusations? Not everything is worth it,” he wrote on his Twitter account.
The senator from the National Party, Sebastián Da Silva, took direct aim at the left-wing coalition. “Waiting for the monitoring commission of Astesiano of the Broad Front so that they finally dare to question. The day we have a more serious and mature opposition we will be a little better as a country,” He also stated on Twitter.
