The Justice imputed this Fridayat the request of the prosecutor Gabriela Fossati, to the number three of the National Police, Jorge Berriel, for his participation in the Astesiano case.
Berriel, who currently holds the position of deputy executive director of the Police, was accused of three crimes of revealing a secret. Will have their travel documents have been retained for 180 days, leaving the country is prohibited and they must set their domicile.
Within the three situations in which the Justice understood that the deputy executive director of the Police revealed secrets there are the data provided to the former chief of custodians Alejandro Astesiano about a minor who filed a complaint of sexual abuse at a party organized by militants of the National Party.
In recent days the Ministry of the Interior reported that Berriel will be removed and will leave his position on March 1, 2023. This change adds to dismissal of the director of the National Police, Diego Fernandez.
When asked about these changes, the President of the Republic Luis Lacalle Pou acknowledged -although Heber had said otherwise- that the Berriel’s relationship with Astesiano was one more element for its removal.
Fossati’s word
Ines Guimaraens
Prosecutor Gabriela Fossati during the formalization hearing
Prosecutor Fossati assured in a press conference after the hearing that Berriel “I was not empowered to deliver information from the emerging Public Safety Management System (SGSP).”
“One of them especially serious because it was linked to crimes of a sexual nature and from one Teen who has special protection,” added the prosecutor.
In this sense, he considered that it is a “good moment” for “begin to think about driving“what is made of the”information“. “That it has certain conditions, is reserved and has some safeguards that are necessary for the criminal justice system to work.”
Asked about other messages that the number three of the Police exchanged with Berriel, Fossati acknowledged that there are “many”, but that not everyone has a criminal complaint.
“They do not fit in the judgment of the Prosecutor’s Office in criminal offenses”, he stressed. “It is understood that the information emanating from the SGSP has to be specially protected and that here there was a departure from what was mandated by the regulations.”
Why won’t Berriel go to jail? Fossati explained that the crimes that were imputed to the police chief do not carry a prison sentence. “The penalty established by the norm is a penalty of disqualification and a fine.”
Berrie’s defense
Ines Guimaraens
Jorge Berriel during the formalization hearing
The police chief was legally represented at the hearing by the criminal lawyer Juan Fagúndez. He had first hired Andrés Ojeda, but in the last few hours he changed his defense.
Fagundez also referred to the accusation at a press conference and acknowledged that his client delivered “three documents”, known as “police parts”.
“They are delivered from three different facts at the request of the President’s head of security, who requests them, in turn, on behalf of the President. And he, in the position he is in, in a vertical institution, You can’t refuse to deliver that because it’s your superior“, founded the lawyer, although Astesiano was not a public official.
For Fagundez it is It is necessary to determine if the police reports are confidential and therefore their dissemination is prohibited, or if, on the contrary, they are reserved but can be revealed for “security issues or interests of the Presidency”.
The lawyer maintained that Berriel lives the accusation “like a disgrace”: “He feels deep down that he did something that was required of him by the highest authority.”
And in this sense, he pointed out that Astesiano, in some cases, directly invoked President Lacalle Pou.
Berriel’s links with Astesiano
Carlos Pazos
Alejandro Astesiano during the assumption of Lacalle Pou on March 1, 2020. Archive
The head of the Ministry of the Interior held several conversations via WhatsApp with Alejandro Astesiano, the president’s former chief of custodians, who are part of the investigation that Fossati is carrying out and which already has various defendants. Berriel He is the second public official charged, since the ex-consul of Uruguay in Moscow was previously charged, Stéfano Di Conza, who was released on bail.
In some of those conversations provided data on a minor who presented a complaint for sexual abuse during a party organized by militants of the National Party. In other, exchanged data on a private trip of Lorena Ponce de Leónwhich at that time was separated from President Lacalle Pou.
But it also appears in other conversations with Astesiano, for example, in which he refers to a monitoring the president of the PIT-CNT with cameras from the Ministry of the Interior, as well as the transfer request of a Rivera police officer.
