Mexico City.- Javier Corral, an elected senator from Morena who is protected against a complaint for embezzlement of 98 million pesos, denounced the governor of Chihuahua, María Eugenia Campos, and the state Anti-Corruption prosecutor, Luis Abelardo Valenzuela, for the crimes of illegal deprivation of liberty, abuse of authority and abusive exercise of functions.
Through social media, Corral, who recently obtained a provisional suspension against the complaint filed against him by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, expressed that both officials want to prevent his arrival at the Senate.
In a message, he shared the statement from his defense, “Schütte y Delsol Abogados,” which states that the attempt by Chihuahua prosecutors to arrest him on August 14 in a restaurant in Roma Norte, in the country’s capital, was illegal.
“The officials of the Prosecutor’s Office of this city (CDMX), in accordance with the Law, prevented an illegal detention and the continued commission of crimes within the territory of their jurisdiction. It is essential to highlight that there was no authorization for the detention and transfer of Javier Corral Jurado in accordance with Section V of the Twelfth Provision of the Collaboration Agreement between prosecutors’ offices,” it was argued.
Just last August 16, former PAN governor Corral Jurado, who resigned from the PAN in 2023, obtained a provisional suspension to avoid such arrest.
The Fifth District Judge in Amparo of Mexico City, Patricia Marcela Diez Cerda, set the hearing for August 27 to determine whether or not to grant the definitive suspension, a ruling that would indefinitely halt the arrest warrant, which would mean that Corral could have immunity as a senator starting September 1.
Defense reproaches that they call Corral a ‘fugitive’
In the same statement, Corral’s defense criticized the term “fugitive from justice” used by his client, assuring that he is not evading any legal order.
“A fugitive from justice is someone who materially flees from the legal actions of the authorities, not someone who legally defends himself with the resources at his disposal ‘a true activity of theft’, as the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Court calls it in its ruling of April 17, 2024,” it added.
This is how Corral avoided being arrested
On August 14, Chihuahua police attempted to arrest Corral after claiming they had signed a collaboration agreement with the capital’s Attorney General’s Office.
However, after at least one phone call, the former governor managed to get the capital’s prosecutor, Ulises Lara, to come to the establishment, who denied having accepted such collaboration and, in addition, took the former state governor away in his truck.
According to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Corral Jurado is accused of embezzling more than 98 million pesos through a simulation of debt restructuring in July 2019.
Chihuahua prosecutor Abelardo Valenzuela said last week that evidence had been presented that Corral had irregularly awarded a contract worth 98.6 million pesos to the López Elías Finanzas Públicas SC law firm during his administration.
For this reason, a First Instance Judge of the Morelos Judicial District, in Chihuahua, granted the arrest warrant for criminal case 3050/2024, which is currently halted by the suspension.
“That resource was diverted to award a contract to a private individual that was intended to restructure the debt of the state of Chihuahua without any deliverables having been made.
“This is a clear and flagrant violation of all applicable regulations in the state of Chihuahua; they practically made a contract, they simulated a debt restructuring,” the Chihuahua prosecutor described in a press conference.
Valenzuela explained that the investigation was initiated by the State Audit Office when Javier Corral was still governor of Chihuahua.
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