The former head of the United Maritime Workers Union (SOMU), Enrique Omar “Caballo” Suárez, claimed to have suffered “irreparable” damage after being accused of the crimes of illicit association and fraudulent administration in a case in which he was finally acquitted, and affirmed that he intends to “recover” leadership in the union entity.
“The family destroyed me and the damage they did is irreparable. With them we hugged and cried for what happened. God is fair and I live without hate or resentment. I just want to recover the place I had in the organization (SOMU) as well as than all the members of the Board of Directors that he headed and we were displaced,” Suárez said in statements to Radio Cooperativa.
Last Monday, the Federal Oral Court number 4 of the City of Buenos Aires acquitted the union leader of the crimes of which he was charged in an oral and public trial that lasted three years, and within the framework of a case that began in 2016.
The trade unionist was released from prison at the end of the oral debate, where four open criminal cases were aired against him, although for these accusations he was detained first in prison and then under house arrest.
One of the cases, the one that investigated the crime of obstructing waterways, was declared prescribed.
Suárez announced that next Thursday, June 23, an assembly will be held at the door of the union to read the court’s resolution and a letter document that he sent to the current leadership of SOMU.
Also, He asked for “the support of the national authorities” and especially from the Ministers of Labor, Employment and Social Security, Claudio Moroni, and of Justice and Human Rights, Martín Soria, with whom he is going to request “an in-person hearing.”.
“I was the figurehead to teach all the union leaders what could happen to them if they defended the rights of the workers. It was a dictatorship disguised as a democracy. Look what they are going to do because if they come back logically we will go back to jail. Not only me, but there are already designated “, warned the trade unionist in reference to the Cambiemos government.
Meanwhile, he maintained that he was not “surprised” by the broadcast of a video about a meeting held in June 2017, at the Buenos Aires headquarters of Banco Provincia, which was held by former Buenos Aires officials, agents of the Federal Intelligence Agency and businessmen from La Plata, and in which Marcelo Villegas, then Minister of Labor of the administration headed by María Eugenia Vidal, stated that he would like to have “a Gestapo” -the political police of the Nazi regime- to act against the unions.
“The thing about the Gestapo was purely the truth. You have to remember Vidal’s speeches. She was a heroine for imprisoning me and the (former secretary general of Uocra-La Plata Juan Pablo) ‘Pata’ Medina,” he said.
