Duarte was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to the crime of operations with resources of illicit origin. His profile already meets what is established to request his pre-release, since he only has five months left on his sentence – he has complied with 95% of it.
The judge did not define the date to hold the pre-release hearing, but it will occur until the interrogation of 11 witnesses is carried out – six called by the FGR and five by Duarte’s defense.
Duarte was originally charged by Mexican authorities with organized crime. His crime was later reclassified.
Duarte de Ochoa was governor of Veracruz between December 2010 and October 2016, when he requested a license from the state Congress due to accusations against him of corruption and illicit enrichment. At that time, Flavino Ríos, who was its general secretary, assumed his position.
(Photo: Cuartoscuro.)
On October 25, 2016, Javier Duarte was expelled from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which supported him to win the Veracruz election in 2010. At that time, the politician already had a red Interpol file and was wanted by agents of the then Attorney General’s Office (PGR).
A few months later, in April 2017, the former PRI member was arrested in the town of Panajachel, in Guatemala, and then extradited to Mexico.
It was in 2018 when the PGR reclassified the crime against Duarte. The change was not minor. If he had stayed with the organized crime charge, he would have spent between 20 and 40 years in prison. Instead, he only received a nine-year sentence, in which – according to his defense – he has completed the social reintegration processes.
Economist and politician, Duarte married Karime Macías Tubilla in 1999, who also has open investigation files in Mexico for alleged fraud committed in the State System for the Comprehensive Development of the Family (DIF) of Veracruz.
In 2018, the woman was captured by national media in London, England, for which authorities asked the government of the European country for her extradition. However, so far she has not been arrested.
In Mexico, the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) did block her bank accounts in 2022. Karime is accused of leading a network of shell companies that operated during her husband’s administration.
At the time, Javier Duarte meant one of Enrique Peña Nieto’s great defeats, since the then president boasted of the then governor of Veracruz as part of a new and fresh generation of the PRI.
Duarte was tried to be linked to the murder of journalists, the disappearance of people and even the alleged provision of water instead of medicine to children with cancer in Veracruz. However, authorities only charged him with the crime of operations with illicit resources.
