This Monday, August 15, the Broad Front decided to question the Foreign Minister, Francisco Bustillo, and the Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Heber, for “irregularities” in the delivery of the Uruguayan passport Sebastián Marset, accused of being the head of a drug trafficking network .
The questioning member will be the senator from the Front, Mario Bergara.
This Tuesday, Heber told the press that he would gladly appear before Parliament, but indicated that he is unaware of the doubts that have arisen about the granting of the passport, because he assured that the legislation is very clear.
The government has argued that Marset’s passport was granted in compliance with decree 129/014, of May 2014, which approves the regulations for issuing passports.
Article 29 of said decree establishes that for the issuance of a common passport to Uruguayans abroad, consultation of judicial records in Uruguay will be required. According to the Executive, the National Directorate of Scientific Police to the National Directorate of Civil Identification (DNIC) determined that Marset did not have open cases in the Uruguayan Justice, because the ones he had had been closed.
Heber said he was granted the passport because “there was no requirement or red alerts from Interpol, so there was no notice of anything that could be noticed.”
In October 2013, Marset Cabrera had been prosecuted and sentenced as “co-author criminally responsible for three crimes of illicit drug trafficking in the form of organization and as co-author in two of them.” He served a sentence in Uruguay, was released in 2018 and settled in Paraguay, then moved to Dubai where he was arrested for carrying a false Paraguayan passport, but in January 2022 Uruguay finally granted him a Uruguayan passport. On March 7, 2022, Interpol Paraguay requested his capture.
Heber assured that Marset used the Uruguayan passport, because he left Dubai.
On the other hand, the Secretary of State assured that work is being done to modify the regulations.
“We did not know that this decree was in force, which led to relaxing the requirements to grant a passport and that decree enabled that possibility. The regulations are wrong. We are changing it, ”he explained, adding that the possibility of crossing information when it comes to drug trafficking cases is being studied.
Irregular
For his part, Bergara, who will be the questioning member, said that the delivery of the passport was “irregular and was done expressly.”
“A passport was expressly and in very unusual circumstances granted to a Uruguayan citizen accused of being the head of a criminal organization who was imprisoned in Dubai for the use of a false passport of Paraguayan nationality,” remarked the Frente Amplio legislator.
The interpellation will be held on Monday, August 22 at 3:00 p.m.
fingerprints to jail
Meanwhile, in the last hours it emerged that the former consul in the United Arab Emirates, Fiorella Prado, requested at least twice to be told how to proceed with the request for the processing and issuance of Marset’s passport due to warnings that had come to her, reported The Observer.
The diplomat informed the Foreign Ministry that Marset was in prison for entering Dubai with a false Paraguayan passport and asked if she should go to jail to take his fingerprints.
