Within hours of the name of José Morales being voted and eventually ratified by the Senate to be the next head of the Public Ministry, new facts are known about unclear actions in emblematic cases. This time it has to do with his participation in the so-called “Garbage case”, a major corruption scandal that took place between 2009 and 2011, and within the framework of which –after more than 10 years– the Fifth Court of Oral Criminal Trial of Santiago sentenced a former communal authority from Maipú, for the crime of money laundering and bribery. This is former councilor Marcelo Torres Ferrari (RN), accused by the Western Metropolitan Regional Prosecutor’s Office, after proving payments to the KDM company for $186,500,000.
This was precisely one of the facts for which President Gabriel Boric’s candidate to head the National Prosecutor’s Office was consulted in his presentation before the Constitution Commission of the Senate. During the session this Monday, and obviously uncomfortable, Senator Rodrigo Galilea (RN) explained that his query was related to an edge of the Basura case, which emerged as a result of a report by Cyper, and in which Torres was mentioned. In his speech, the parliamentarian asked Morales to clarify why, as he was an official of the Public Ministry in another Prosecutor’s Office, he gave a statement in said case as a result of advice that he would have provided to the main witness in the case, named Paula Díaz. . Fact that the senator described as, at least, “reckless.”
“This is a case in which a classmate of yours is practically charged, who had been married to your partner at that time, and you end up as a prosecutor summoned to testify as a witness in the case of prosecutor Solange Huerta My issue is imprudence, I know that there are no sanctions, that there were never proceedings, it is a matter of imprudence”, the RN senator asked an attentive José Morales, who took about two minutes to build a response, that left empty
Before the Constitution, Legislation, Justice and Regulations Committee of the Senate, Morales assured that the cause that came into his hands, known as the Cerro Navia ridge, had no relation to the garbage case. “I want to be super precise about this. First of all, the case that was started in Cerro Navia had nothing to do with the Basura case, they are different edges and it is a case that, as I understand it, is going to go to trial now, according to what I know from the press”, was what he pointed out.
In the same presentation, however, prosecutor Morales himself acknowledged that prosecutors Solange Huerta and Tania Mora requested the cause that was in their hands, because it was indeed related to that of corruption known as the Basura case.
When asked by Senator Galilea about his actions in favor of Paula Díaz, the deputy prosecutor assured that the main witness in the case asked him something in general and he suggested to her, as to all the people who come to ask questions, that she should say the truth.
“In that case, one of the witnesses told me on one occasion by email that they were telling her that she should not testify in the case of this Mr. Torres, and my response was like the one I would give to anyone if they ask me if someone You may or may not negotiate the content of your statement in a Court of Justice. To anyone who asks me this, in any circumstance and at any time, I have to tell you that the statement before a Court of Justice and before the Prosecutor’s Office must strictly adhere to to the truth, and it was my suggestion to the person you point to (Paula Díaz),” the prosecutor pointed out.
What José Morales omitted before the Commission is that that witness, whom he presented as any person, was strictly speaking a very close person, with whom he had a sentimental relationship.
In the judgment of the Basura case of July 22, 2022, the Public Ministry asked prosecutor Morales what his relationship was with the witness, to which he replied that he knew her because they were university classmates. Then he was asked if he had a sentimental relationship with her, to which Morales answered in the negative, despite the fact that the witness told her lawyer that Morales was her partner and her cohabitant.
After his first refusal, the prosecutor admitted that he did indeed have a sentimental relationship, but ruled out cohabitation, giving a far-fetched argument. The text of the sentence reads: “He states that he had a brief sentimental relationship with her. He specifies that he has not been a civil cohabitant of her in terms of understanding cohabitation as to qualify a femicide, it has not been cohabitation.”
In another aspect of the response that Morales gives to Senator Galilea, he emphasizes that his advice was minor and that this does not violate any rule of probity. “I want to point out that this under no point of view can be considered in the prohibition that I have as a prosecutor, and if any response that a prosecutor gives to a person, whether from the Prosecutor’s Office or No. My answer was the one I always give to people, that they report the facts, collaborate with the investigation, and please go to testify in court. That was basically my advice and it was what I exposed in court. Of course, details to the Regarding the truth, I do not remember them, it is a cause that I had very little time and that basically took place in Cerro Navia”.
In the aforementioned sentence, however, Paula Díaz herself explained that the advice that Morales gave her was transformed into a document made before a notary and that she presented in the framework of the trial. “The witness points out that she signed a document at the time they were separated with Marcelo (Torres). His lawyer asked his lawyer to give up, to sign a statement saying that he was psychologically ill. In a document he signed Advised by a criminal lawyer, she signed something that she was not going to declare, but she did it because of the judicial war, the lawyer told her that this was exercised in the trial. The lawyer was her partner, a well-known prosecutor, José Morales.”
Prosecutor Morales was consulted by The counter and he referred to pointing out that everything he had to say had been said before the Commission.
