This Monday, August 22, the interpellation to the ministers Francisco Bustillo (Foreign Relations) and Luis Alberto Heber (Interior), for the actions of both Secretaries of State in granting the passport to Sebastián Marset, while he was detained in Duabái, was carried out. for possessing a false Paraguayan document.
The questioning member, Senator Mario Bergara (Frente Amplio), made an extensive and well-founded statement, and said that “at this moment, somewhere in the world, a accused Uruguayan drug trafficker is unpunished, with an extensive criminal record and identified as being responsible for very serious crimes”.
Bergara lamented that each of the actions carried out by the Uruguayan authorities, as well as their consequences, seem functional to the private needs of Marset.
Research
In his turn, Minister Heber reported that once he was aware of the entire process, he carried out the inquiries in both the Civil and Scientific Investigations, and confirmed that it was a procedure “adjusted to current legislation and, therefore, there is no procedure situation. express”.
He acknowledged, however, that on the occasion of the interpellation he was analyzing all the facts in depth and detail.
“This Saturday, August 20, in this process of informing Parliament, we were approached with information that there had been an instance between Civil and Scientific Identification trying to rush three passports, including that of Mr. Marset,” he declared.
Heber also expressed that an urgent investigation was carried out in the Ministry of the Interior in Scientific and Civil Investigation, which is yielding results this Monday.
“There is an investigation of an email, we try to find out who was the material author of it, and we are told that this is common. I don’t know if it’s common, I don’t care if it’s usual or not, I didn’t know about it and I hadn’t been informed, so we did an urgent investigation and we’re going to make a summary with separation from the position”, from the deputy director of Civil Identification Alberto Lacoste.
He expanded that the deputy director of Civil Identification is in the position as a result of a trust function of the Ministry of the Interior.
“We have not dismissed him, but we have withdrawn our trust, in the position of deputy director, there is no dismissal, because there is an administrative investigation and we will see the summary. We have to give the guarantees of due process”, he indicated.
It was not an express passport
In any case, at the beginning of his speech, Heber rejected the accusation that Bergara had made minutes before, referring to Marset’s passport being processed “expressly”.
Heber said that there is also no lack of coordination between the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of the Interior. He stated that he acted in accordance with current decree No. 129/014 and that if he had not acted in accordance with said regulations he would also have been summoned by Parliament.
“It is very important to place ourselves in time. Consider what the reality was in October 2021 and what the reality is in 2022. Now, with Monday’s newspaper, it is very easy to say that one did not act in this or that way, when the news or evidence was not what the administration to be able to act in September, October and November 2021”, explained the Secretary of State.
He assured that in October or November “there was no requirement from Marset at the international level.”
Heber added that the “red alert” requirement from Paraguay came out on March 3, 2022, and not before.
“It was then that they informed us that Sebastián Marset was being required by Paraguay and that he had left Dubai with a Uruguayan passport,” he said.
Indignation
Heber expressed that the indignation that Senator Bergara indicated for the fact is the same indignation that there was in the government in the face of this situation.
“No one has a monopoly on outrage, but the news that Mr. Marset had left Dubai also generated outrage in the government and in the President of the Republic,” he said.
The decree
He added that when he found out how it was possible for a person imprisoned abroad to be given a passport, “it was very clear that article 129 of the 2014 decree eliminated what was established by a 1993 decree,” and that, therefore, , only antecedents and open cases in Uruguay were considered when granting a passport”.
In this sense, the Secretary of State indicated that “all the cases of Marset in Uruguay were archived in 2020.”
He also explained that the Uruguayan drug trafficker crossed several countries with his false Paraguayan passport, without being detected, among them: “France, Turkey and Greece”, and that he was recently detected in the United Arab Emirates.
“We are not in the situation of someone who was relatively easy to catch. It was Europol itself that worked with Paraguay to put it on a ‘red alert’ at the international level and block the airports,” said the Secretary of State, who announced that the government is working to modify Decree No. 129/014, and prevent the generate similar events in the future.
