In an extensive interview with La Nación, National Senator Antonio Barrios gave details about the two assassination threats received by the former President of the Republic, Horacio Cartes. According to the former Minister of Health, there were two complaints and he even assured that the government of Mario Abdo Benítez was involved in one of them. The second complaint is recent, it was in May of this year when the senator was a direct witness to conversations between former President of the Republic Horacio Cartes and Interior Minister Federico González.
Source: The Nation
By Alejandra Viola
According to the parliamentarian, the details of the first complaint of an attack against former president Cartes was provided by the minister of the National Anti-Drug Secretariat, Zully Rolón. The meeting took place in times of municipal elections, in October 2021.
“The government had to do with the first attack because the Senad minister contacted me at the time of municipal elections, she told me in my office in the Chamber of Senators and asked me for an audience with President Cartes, she herself He reported on that possibility that was circulating about attempting on the life of the former president, ”said the senator. “I don’t know if there were any results because that is no longer my responsibility, but that was the first complaint,” he added.
Between May 22 and 23 of this year, Senator Antonio Barrios became aware of a complaint about the alleged plan to assassinate Horacio Cartes. He mentioned that this information was received from people who work in public bodies and are fully identified by him.
“That information I received, I socialized with Horacio Cartes, I can say that this information was passed on to me by fully identified and authorized people, but I reserve it because they work in public bodies and can be harmed,” he said.
Barrios added that that day, after meeting with Cartes, they began to inform ambassadors, the nunciature, and even the attorney general’s office itself. On May 30, Horacio Cartes receives a call from the Minister of the Interior, Federico González, who asks for an audience because he had something urgent to convey to him. Cartes summons González that same day and asks Senator Antonio Barrios to accompany him.
At that meeting, Minister Federico González told him that they had a complaint about a possible attack against the integrity of Horacio Cartes. “Horacio Cartes told him that he was aware of that because I had already informed him about it a week before and he let the minister know that what worried him most was that the President of the Republic himself commented that something serious was going on with him. to pass,” he said.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/lanacionpy/U3COUBQRDFGT7CM7VYKFZKETWE.jpeg "Velázquez lied: his wife did not resign and is still in the line of succession of Sandra Quiñónez")
At that meeting, González offered President Cartes police custody, but Cartes rejected the offer. Cartes questioned the head of the interior about what security he guaranteed and made it very clear that he did not want any type of protection from SENAD because a minister had been dismissed from that institution for his links with drug traffickers and that did not provide any type of guarantee. . “I have my security and I have full confidence in it,” Cartes told the minister, said Barrios.
Later, says Senator Barrios, the National Anti-Drug Secretariat filed a formal complaint with the Public Ministry. “We learned that SENAD filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office,” he added.
For the former Minister of Health, the visits made by various members of the ruling party to the United States Secretary of State, including Lilian Samaniego in her recent and questioned visit to Washington, Hugo Velázquez himself on several occasions and other parliamentarians, were to carry biased information.
“With the political hammer that they have from SENAD or the invented ones that Giuzzio had, that is what they would have taken to the United States, that is what I suppose, but that they went to the State Department and spoke with people there, they were and repeatedly,” said the senator.
“As they cannot beat him in elections, they want to win by ‘Walkover’ and they intend for this to happen that way because if they run in elections, the defeat that Marito is going to have is going to be catastrophic”
Regarding the possibility that these serious accusations will set back the efforts within the movement’s campaigns, Senator Barrios said that the effect is completely reversed. “This happened in May and we never stopped, we continued campaigning and doing what we had to do”
“This gives us more strength, we are going to increase the effort fivefold so that our candidate becomes president of the Republic, this is not going to end, on the contrary, it gives us more strength because the affection of the people drives the candidates to continue with this now. 24 hours after the speech of the ambassador of the United States came out, today the presence in Villarrica was massive and the support that Horacio Cartes had denotes the acceptance he has of a president who has had an exceptional management”, he concluded.
