“It is not true that the government has lied or misrepresented the truth in Parliament,” the president responded to leaders of the Broad Front. President Luis Lacalle Pou supported on Tuesday the actions of the Foreign and Interior Ministries in the process that led to the delivery of the passport to the Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset, imprisoned at that time in the United Arab Emirates. “There was no other option than to give him the passport,” said the president at a press conference from Colonia Valdense (Colonia). The president listed five points on the subject, which he returned to the table after it became known that the undersecretary of the Interior (Guillermo Maciel) had warned his foreign relations counterpart (Carolina Ache) about the danger of Marset. “First, it is not true that the government has lied or misrepresented the truth in Parliament,” Lacalle began, responding to the Broad Front legislators. Secondly, he assessed that the communications between the two deputy ministers “were known in the interpellation itself and later because they made it known” during the judicial investigation. Third, none of these chats have to do with the granting of a passport. It is information that was required by the Police », he declared.
When speaking of the fourth point, he mixed a criticism of the Broad Front for “hitting everything that moves” and assured that the government and the opposition know that “they acted (according to) the law and as it should be: the government could not act in another way, unfortunately.
“Fifth: luckily this issue is going to be elucidated in Justice,” he concluded.
Asked about the contradiction between Bustillo, who in the interpellation said that “in November (2021) nobody knew who Marset was” and the warning about the “dangerous and heavy drug trafficker” that Maciel gave Ache at the beginning of that same month, Lacalle asked to analyze “all the shorthand.” «One thing is Marset in October and another is Marset in March. And others are the police procedures and also the moment that he was subject to the law and convicted. That is why they are the statements of the chancellor », he declared.
Gandini surprised with the chats
The senator of the National Party Jorge Gandini was surprised by the chats that were known in the last hours between the Undersecretary of the Interior Guillermo Maciel and the Vice Foreign Minister Carolina Ache referring to a conversation they had on November 3, 2021 about the situation of the Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset, arrested at the time in Dubai for traveling with a false Paraguayan passport.
“I am surprised, because I did not know, nor did I take notice of that information in the interpellation. We are going to process it, we are going to study it. Here it is a matter of providing transparency and clarity and that each one takes charge of their own”, said Gandini in reference to the chats and to what was reported in the interpellation that the Broad Front made in August of this year to the ministers Luis Alberto Heber (Interior) and Francisco Bustillo (External Relations). Maciel and Ache also appeared at that interpellation.
Interviewed on the Arriba Gente program on channel 10, this Tuesday, Gandini said that he “compensates in some way for what the Undersecretary of Foreign Relations said” on Monday, after these chats with Macie were made public. “She said: ‘I contributed these chats, they did not come to my cell phone to investigate them, I contributed them myself to the investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office to which I am in charge.’ In other words, that was not hidden either,” Gandini commented.
Asked if there is not a contradiction with what Foreign Minister Bustillo said in the interpellation, regarding the fact that it was not known who Marset was when the Uruguayan passport that he requested from Dubai was processed to be released, Gandini replied: “there is Let’s say, little clarity”, and added: “we are going to clarify dates, statements, I am going to review the shorthand version of the question a little to see what was said, because in the end we are also co-responsible for all these things and I am more that no one, or at least no less than no one, I want to be clear about the things that are later reported to me and I defend or not defend”.
THE CHATS
In that chat conversation between Guillermo Maciel and Carolina Ache, on November 3, 2021, the Undersecretary of the Interior asks: “Hello Caro, can we find out what happened to this criminal detained in Dubai for a false document. He is a very dangerous and heavy drug trafficker ”.
There Maciel also tells Ache that if Marset ends up being released “it would be terrible.” Ache responds by saying that she is going to find out.
Marset was arrested in Dubai on September 10, 2021 and at the end of that month, on the 21st, Maciel asked Ache to find out what documentation Marset entered the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with.
A month later, at the end of October, Marset began the procedures to obtain a legal Uruguayan passport and thus be able to regain his freedom and leave the UAE.
Finally Marset obtains the Uruguayan passport, is released, leaves Dubai and since then it is not known where he is.
Economy will grow 5%
The President of the Republic participated this Tuesday in the year-end Board of Directors of Federated Agricultural Cooperatives that met in Colonia Valdense. In his speech, he stated that the economy will grow 5% this year thanks to the measures taken during the pandemic and the cooperative drive of Uruguayans, among other definitions. The institution brings together 20 cooperatives and 10,000 producers, 80% family producers.
Colorados analyze situation of Carolina Ache
From the insider of the Colorado Party they indicated that the vice chancellor will be there, whom they want to listen to before taking a position. “This is a sensitive issue,” Lanz said. This Thursday the bench of the Colorado Party meets with Vice Chancellor Carolina Ache to analyze what emerges from the chats between her and the Undersecretary of the Interior, Guillermo Maciel, on the Marset case. From the intern they indicated that before taking a position on the matter, they want to hear what Ache, which belongs to the Ciudadanos sector, has to say on the subject.
“What we understand is that over time, after the interpellation, we find out about documents and facts that yesterday we were made aware of through the media and we believe that this instance of meeting with the vice chancellor will serve to deepen, make all these issues very clear”, said Colorado senator Pablo Lanz at a press conference recorded by Channel 5 and to which Underlined agreed.
Lanz announced that for Ciudadanos “this is a sensitive issue”, but that the decisions will be made after the meeting. “You have to clarify up to the last consequences,” he remarked.
This Monday, the vice chancellor assured that she has “always acted with transparency” and that she has “a clear conscience.” “I had no participation in the request, processing, issuance and delivery of the passport in question and the actions of the Foreign Ministry officials were in accordance with the law, as was demonstrated in the administrative investigation,” he said on Twitter, adding that he has been at disposition of the Prosecutor’s Office to “investigate what it has to investigate”.
For the Broad Front “it is clear” that the Foreign Ministry knew who Marset was when he gave him the Uruguayan passport. The Frente Amplio bench understood that there was a lack of information in what the authorities transmitted about the exchange between Ache and Maciel, as well as in the meeting between the Foreign Ministry and Marset’s lawyer, Alejandro Balbi. Also in exchanges at the consular mission in the United Arab Emirates.
