The defense of José Peirano Basso filed a complaint with the Paraguayan government for non-compliance with the extradition treaty by which the former banker was handed over to that State to be tried for the fall of Banco Alemán.
Peirano’s defender, Pablo Donnangelo, told El Observador that this is an “international crime” and that the act is very serious. The criminal lawyer presented two writings before the Justice so that through the Foreign Ministry they can be denounced before the government of Paraguay.
The extradition treaty between the two countries establishes that the citizen who is handed over to stand trial can only be charged for the crimes for which he is handed over. and not by others (specialty principle). However, in this case, in the two cases that Peirano Basso had open in Paraguay, the judges accused him of more crimes than those included in the extradition.
In one of those cases, which is that of the Guaraní Investment Fund, the judge charged him, in addition to the crime of breach of trust, three more crimes, and in the second case, which is actually that of Banco Alemán, the judge charged him, in addition to the crimes of breach of trust, misconduct in crisis situations and fraud, two other crimes that were not included in the extradition request.
As Donnángelo stated in the brief he presented, the principle of specialty, regulated in article 249 of the Code of Criminal Procedure “exercises a guarantee function both for the extraditable and for the requested State in that the requesting party will faithfully comply with the sentence of extradition” and non-observance of this principle implies a double breach of unusual seriousness”. On the one hand, he maintains, the sentence is being breached and, on the other, international law is being breached.
Donnángelo stated that if Paraguay does not correct this situation, it exposes itself to being internationally sanctioned for non-compliance and pointed out that Uruguay could request the repatriation of the Uruguayan citizen.
Peirano’s lawyer in Paraguay, Guillermo Duarte Cacavelos, also filed an appeal in his country claiming non-compliance with the extradition sentence. Duarte declared to an ABC television program that “this case is going to put the malpractice of the application of preventive detention in Paraguay on the international showcase.” The lawyer explained that Peirano “was extradited for a punishable act and Uruguay expressly said” that he cannot be tried in Paraguay for other conducts and “guarantee judge number 1 ordered him to remand for punishable acts that Uruguay did not authorize. With his resolution, he disregarded the treaty ”, he affirmed and added that the guarantee judge number 4 did the same.
integrity protection
On the other hand, Donnángelo stated that Paraguay also fails to comply with the order given by the Uruguayan Justice to protect the physical integrity of the accused because it ordered that after 20 days he be confined in the Tacumbu prison, which is one of the worst prisons in Latin America.
“In this prison, torture and inhumane treatment are common, it is a prison that the Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture recommended closing,” said the lawyer. In the letter, he stated that sending Peirano Basso to that prison “is equivalent to subjecting him to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment that may lead to the violation of their right to life”.
“There is a risk to the life of my client and our country has the obligation to avoid it,” he said.
