The deputy director of Civil Identification, Alberto Lacoste, tried to speed up the passport process of Sebastián Marset at the request of his lawyer in Uruguay, Alejandro Balbi, reported Telenoche and confirmed The Observer.
According to ministerial sources, The Observer, Lacoste held a meeting with Balbi, of which he did not notify the ministry, where the lawyer made the request. After that meeting, the chief sent an email asking to speed up the process. The Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Heber, referred to that email during the interpellation.
This was detected by the ministerial leadership last Saturday, as a result of urgent information that emerged in the Scientific Police. This Monday an administrative investigation and the dismissal of Lacoste were ordered. In parallel, the Foreign Ministry is investigating an omission.
Although it was not possible to alter the process, Minister Heber was not notified of what happened. That is why, the portfolio holder pointed out, “confidence was lost.”
Heber said that an urgent summary and investigation was arranged and Lacoste was removed from his position for not having informed him about this communication. “We are told that this is usual, it is common, I don’t know, I don’t care, I had not been informed,” express.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo announced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also ordered a administrative investigation to “safeguard the honorability of the people who participated”. “We are convinced that they acted within the framework of the law, but these are situations that we want the services that work for us to investigate,” he added.
Marset applied for his Uruguayan passport in October last year from a jail in the United Arab Emirates, where it was held when he tried to leave with a false Paraguayan document. At that time, he was already being investigated by the US DEA – with the collaboration of Uruguay – for his participation in a drug trafficking network in South America.
