The interim attorney Eduardo Casal sent a letter to President Alberto Fernández as a result of his statements once morest the prosecutors who alleged in the public works trial and argued that they imply “a clear disturbance in the exercise of their functions”.
“These expressions not only undermine the independence and autonomy of this Public Prosecutor’s Office, but also constitute undue interference in the processing of a process whose legality this same Institution must also ensure (art. 120 of the National Constitution), and that at the same time affects the republican principle of division and respect of powers”, says the letter signed by Casal following meeting with prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola.
Prosecutors Mola and Luciani had already been harshly criticized by Cristina Kirchner in her presentation from the Senate, but last night, while trying to defend the vice president, the president spoke of “a judicial and media persecution” and pointed out Luciani, who was in charge of the most forceful section of the allegation. For the Attorney, that accusation “It implies a clear disturbance in the exercise of their functions (art. 63, sub. c, of Law 27148) which, in my opinion, is even aggravated by the pejorative references with which they have described their professional status.”
The letter, of just two pages, concludes diplomatically: “Convinced that the proper weighting of the preceding considerations due to his high investiture will contribute to the strengthening of the institutions that govern our life in society, I greet the President with my most distinguished consideration ”.
Casal took over as interim attorney general in October 2017 when she resigned as chief prosecutor Alejandra Gils Carbó. Last year, he was the target of harsh criticism and even denunciations by the ruling party. In this context, the Government launched a project to reform the law of the Public Ministry that was never approved.
In the program ‘A Dos Voces’, the President also referred last night to the security of prosecutor Luciani and compared it to the case of Alberto Nisman. “Nisman committed suicide, I hope that Luciani does not do something like that,” said Alberto Fernández in that report. The phrase generated an immediate political impact, which included a statement from the Association of Prosecutors, a complaint from the Civic Coalition, and a response from other opposition figures such as the head of the Buenos Aires Government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Mauricio Macri.
Far from retracting, the President came out this morning to ratify his statements. “The question was not regarding the security of the prosecutors, the question was if I feared that the same thing would happen to the prosecutors as it did to Nisman. And since the question was regarding Nisman in particular, I answered what I think: Nisman committed suicide and I don’t see any reason for that to happen with the prosecutor.”, he raised.
The prosecutors assigned to the trial of the public work have a security reinforcement from the beginning of the allegations. And then there was a new reinforcement at Luciani’s home before the publications of the newspaper Pagina 12 that motivated the challenges once morest himself and two of the judges of the oral court.
The security of both prosecutors is in charge of the Federal Police. In the case of Luciani, in addition to outpatient custody, he also has personnel at the door of his home, sources from the Attorney General said.
“The Attorney ratified the institutional support that the prosecutors had been having and that the entire Public Prosecutor’s Office has,” one of the participants in the meeting told this medium.
