The former president and leader of the Colorado Party Julio Maria Sanguinetti said “It is not the first time that a gang of bribes has appeared” in Uruguay, in reference to the actions of the former head of custody of the president Luis Lacalle Pou, Alexander Astesiano.
“So many times it has happened that there were people who processed retirements or telephones in other times”said the former president in an interview with the program top people (Channel 10).
Sanguinetti clarified that does not detract from “transcendence” and that he is “concerned” by the entire case of the ex-custodiancharged in September for being part of an organization that falsified documents of Russian citizens to access Uruguayan documentationand investigated by favors to various hierarchs who revealed themselves in their cell phone conversationsbut assured that “Justice is in charge” and that it “is working”.
In addition, he assured that all the operations of the band that Astesiano integrated “had started before this government.” “The only defendant is the consul who had started in 2013, 2014”he indicated, referring to the Uruguayan ex-consul in Moscow, Stefano DiConzaaccused by 14 repeated crimes of fraud and assumption of Civil Status linked to the case.
for the former president the “spectacularity of the subject” is due to the “symbolic” that part of the crimes committed by Astesiano have been committed in executive toweralthough he understands that the crimes would be the same if they had been committed elsewhere. “Substantially the fact is the same, symbolically not”explained
Asked if the case affects the image of the country, Sanguinetti said: “Sometimes you tend to look at things black and white and it is not like that. The country has great international credit, we demonstrate it again in this episodic circumstance, that doesn’t change.”
The Colorado leader acknowledged that “there is a pothole” in the institutional framework with this case, but relativized that situations of this type occur in all countries. “In what country does it not happen?”consulted.
“Human nature, administrative life leads us to these episodes, but it is not black or white, ‘everything collapsed’, no. Is a negative episode than in the country It is not hidden, it is investigated”Sanguinetti declared.
The former president even highlighted that the fact that a police intelligence agency has investigated the actions of the Astesiano gang and has informed the Prosecutor’s Office before the president, and that he was “the first surprised” by the caseshows that “institutions function regularly.”
