The Chilean Prosecutor’s Office announced on Friday that it will open an ex officio investigation for alleged bribery, bribery and tax crimes, in relation to the revelations of the ‘Pandora Papers’, in which the president’s family sold their participation in a mining business to the best friend of the president with a payment subject to conditions that depended on decisions of the Executive. Piñera insists on his innocence, argues that there are no new facts and that he was already acquitted of this case in 2017.
The financial scandals of Chilean President Sebastián Piñera’s companies marked his first term (2010-2014). And they were not strangers in the second.
The ‘Pandora Papers’ scandal that revealed on Sunday the operations of world figures in tax havens have pointed the force of the accusing finger at Piñera, the front page of newspapers around the world. And their constant statements reaffirming that no new facts were revealed and that everything was “deeply investigated” by the Chilean courts do not convince either the opposition, the citizens, or the public opinion.
“These and other unjust accusations are very painful not only for me, but especially for my family and for all of us who participate in this Government”, Piñera raised the tone on Friday afternoon from La Moneda, putting the accent on the personal.
Hours earlier, a statement from the Presidency stated that the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office was “difficult to understand.”
“We disagree with what was indicated by the Prosecutor’s Office, in order that the sale of Minera Dominga, including its form of payment, price balance, term and conditions, has not been known by the Prosecutor’s Office, by the Guarantee Judge and by the Court of Appeals, which decreed the definitive dismissal and the innocence of President Piñera, “the statement said. Piñera’s defense remains firm and contradicts the Prosecutor’s Office by pointing out that there is no new background in a case that was tried in 2017 and whose ruling was unanimously ratified by an Appeals Court and by the Supreme Court.
“We have full confidence that, as in all previous occasions, the Justice will ratify what has already been decreed by itself and will confirm the total innocence of President Piñera,” he continued.
However, the director of the Anticorruption Unit of the Public Prosecutor’s Office Marta Herrera was clear in pointing out on Friday that the edge of the sale of Dominga “was not investigated” in the 2017 trial.
Piñera and the Presidency maintain that the president is unaware of the management of their businesses because they have been in blind trusts for 12 years. But in Chile, many stand out as difficult to believe that the president of Chile was unaware of the business they carried out in 2010, when he was already president; his children and his best friend, businessman Carlos Délano, already convicted of tax crimes in another case.
A controversial agreement for compromising government decisions
The facts refer to a contract for the sale of a mining project for 152 million dollars that was sealed for the most part in a tax haven, the British Virgin Islands, in a three-installment payment. The last of those quotas, of 10 million dollars, was conditional on the fact that the area where the Dominga mining project was going to be installed, was not declared of environmental protection. Something over which the Government and the President have authority.
The area of Punta Choros was not declared of environmental protection neither during Piñera’s first term nor during this second term, despite the fact that dozens of environmentalists and scientists assure that it is a place of unique biodiversity and a sanctuary for seabirds, where Find it Humboldt Penguin National Reserve, southern dolphins, whales and others.
Doubts about Piñera’s innocence arise in the street
“I do not believe that that he did not know what his blind trust was negotiating, less considering that he closed the door to Barrancones but opened them to Dominga,” says to France 24 on Felipe Rengifo street, a 42-year-old lawyer. years, in reference to a coal-fired thermoelectric project, Barrancones, which Piñera opposed shortly after assuming his first term, citing environmental reasons in the same area where Dominga would be installed. At that time, the Piñera family’s participation in Dominga’s shares was unknown.
“It seems a defense prepared in advance, in addition that the Government should not defend Piñera for personal issues in which he himself got involved,” he adds.
“I do not believe anything to our president. He is a neck and tie thief who was discovered worldwide, all the business that he does behind his back, to take his capital to tax havens and evade taxes. Once again he shows us that he is the worst guy that has ruled the country, “Nelson Cortés, 45, construction worker, told France 24.
‘For the first time in a democracy a (Chilean) president is going to be investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office’
If the street is not favorable to the defense of the president, the opposition deputies – and even some government officials – were not left behind. “For the first time since we have been in democracy, a president of the Republic is going to be investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office for possible crimes that are related to public opinion,” said opposition deputy Álvaro Elizalde, president of the Socialist Party, in statements to CNN Chile .
“This is frankly shameful, scandalous, it must be said clearly,” he said. Chile has a tradition of heads of state who have always acted with probity and with a vocation to serve the country “unfortunately there are many suspicions and the lack of credibility of President Sebastián Piñera,” he added, in a business that involves his family and his best friend “it is hard to believe this explanation, when we know that he has been full of conflicts of this nature during practically his entire political career,” he continued. type and that the facts are finally clarified, “said Elizalde.
“The president has a long history of opting for personal interest in front of the public” on different occasions, said Marcelo Díaz, an independent opposition deputy and former spokesman for Michelle Bachelet’s government in statements to the same network.
Protests against Piñera erupt
In the afternoon, a student demonstration appeared in front of La Moneda against the approval of a Dominga mining-port project, which has always generated much popular rejection, and against President Sebastián Piñera.
The announcement of the Prosecutor’s Office “seems to me timely, correct and on time, it must be made clear that all Chileans are equal and no one is above the law,” said the deputy of the ruling coalition Tomás Fuentes, of the National Renovation party. The investigation will determine whether what the president did is correct or not, although “one thing is legal and the other is ethical, and with regard to the latter, it is certainly not the best cover letter.”
While the opposition is already preparing to gather the necessary votes, 78, to present and carry out a “Constitutional accusation”, a political trial carried out by Congress, which if it goes ahead (which is complex due to the necessary majorities), could remove to the president. Many ruling congressmen see this initiative as an attempt to gain political advantage.
Meanwhile, Dominga, 11 years later, continues its course. In August of this year, an Environmental Assessment Commission of the Coquimbo region, where the mining company that includes a port would be located – and for which the demonstrations took place this Friday in front of the presidential palace – gave the green light to the project by majority, after being rejected on previous occasions during the government of Michelle Bachelet.
It is pending the pronouncement of a committee of ministers from Piñera.
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