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The lawyer Andrés Ojeda, who represents the policeman charged with abuse of duties as a result of the transfer of the Mexican González Valencia from the Republican Guard to the Central Prison, told the daily that there is nothing in the file that links these transfers with Morabito’s escape. Although this possibility was handled by the Prosecutor’s Office, Ojeda stated that there is no reference to that link in the investigation folder.
According to the version of the Prosecutor’s Office, González Valencia was transferred 12 times from the Republican Guard – where he was being held for security reasons – to the Central Prison, without proper authorization and at a transfer cost of 94,000 pesos corresponding to the security operation that it had to be mounted given the risk.
Ojeda pointed out that although the accused policeman belongs to the Republican Guard, where González Valencia was being held, it is the National Institute of Rehabilitation (INR) that is responsible for the prisoner, while the responsibility of the Republican Guard was custody. This is confirmed by a document, signed by the then director of the INR Gonzalo Larrosa, which is part of the file, to which he agreed the daily.
“The Republican Guard does not manage the prisoner or the jail, it provides security in this case to a particular prisoner, but everything that happened to him was decided by the INR,” Ojeda said. Along these lines, he maintained that the Republican Guard took him to the door of Cárcel Central, but it ceased to be his responsibility from the moment the transfer was completed. That is to say, since González Valencia entered the headquarters of Cárcel Central, where the responsibility fell to the INR’s Operational Subdirectorate, on whom security in the prisons depends. At that time, the area was in charge of Gerardo Bidarte, who was summaries after Morabito’s escape and who returned to have a position in the Ministry of the Interior after the change of management.
In addition, Ojeda pointed out that when the incident occurred, the accused police officer “did not even have the rank of captain. [comisario]”, so he did not have the hierarchy of having made the decision to transfer González Valencia without the authorization of the INR. He pointed out that his client told him that they could contact González Valencia so that he could give his version of the events.
Asked about the phone that was given to González Valencia so that he could communicate with his family, Ojeda said that his client told him that it was given by the Ministry of the Interior, in particular, by former director general Charles Carrera.
According to Ojeda, during the interrogations at the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Ricardo Lackner, a prosecutor specializing in Complex Crimes on the 2nd shift, made his client listen to a telephone conversation that he agreed to after having intercepted the phone of the policeman now charged, in which the policeman questioned the prosecutor.
consulted by the daily Regarding the lawyer’s statements, Carrera replied: “I do not understand Dr. Ojeda’s comment or the reference to me. The powers of the General Directorate were related to purely administrative issues, the operational was not under my powers or control. At the time, it was decided to confine Valencia in the Republican Guard for security reasons and I cannot comment beyond this.
In the same sense, the former director of the Republican Guard Alfredo Clavijo expressed himself, who pointed out to the daily that “when González Valencia was transferred to the Republican Guard for security reasons, he requested to communicate with his family in Mexico” and, based on that request, the INR authorities were consulted, who “indicated that migrants deprived of liberty had the right to calls to their countries of origin.” “Based on this advice, the General Directorate of the Secretariat authorized a cell phone that would make it possible to make calls abroad, since in the place where he was housed there was no telephone line to make calls abroad,” he added. Clavijo added that the General Directorate for the Repression of Illicit Drug Trafficking was informed, which were the ones handling the case, and by court order the telephone was intercepted.