The Uruguayan justice did not grant the request made by the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office Crimes Against Humanitywho days ago requested the summons of the former vice president Lucía Topolanskyafter stating that there was witnesses who lied in trials against repressors of the dictatorship.
“In preliminary control, the summons requested, for clarification purposes of facts that the competent Prosecutor’s Office should investigate, has no place in this instance because it does not correspond,” indicates the interlocutory issued by a legal judge.
On Friday, the Attorney General’s Office issued a statement in which it detailed that the prosecutor Ricardo Perciballe requested the Judiciary to “in the shortest possible time, order the summons of Topolansky, wife of the former president Jose Mujica.
“In his writing, prosecutor Perciballe points out: ‘The Prosecutor’s Office maintains its absolute conviction (that) the victims of this case, like all those in which it has had to act, have expressed the truth. Likewise, (that) there is no conspiracy to harm anyone, much less an innocent person,’” the statement cited.
“In accordance with the functional obligations that apply to it and the guarantees that exist in a rule of law, it is deemed pertinent to proceed to summon Ms. Topolansky, as a witness, in order to clarify her statements,” he added in another quote. of the writing.
According to the text, since the creation of the country’s Crimes Against Humanity Prosecutor’s Office, in February 2018, there have been “38 prosecutions and formalizations and 28 convictions” in Uruguay, as well as “73 files to be understood by the prosecutor’s team.” that there was not enough evidence to move forward with the case.”
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the people prosecuted, formalized and convicted in these cases “had all the guarantees of the rule of law”, with the intervention of the judges “in some cases reaching the point of exhausting appeals to the Supreme Court of Justice.” .
Topolansky’s sayings about possible false testimonies In trials against the repressors of the dictatorship, they caused widespread repudiation among the main social groups in Uruguay, where it was only defended by Mujica.
In an interview collected in the book ‘Los indomables’, by the journalist Pablo Cohenwhich compiles dialogues with Topolansky and Mujica, the former vice president said that “there are people who lie” in the trials against soldiers accused of crimes during the civil-military dictatorship (1973-1985).
The statement generated discomfort in the association Mothers and Relatives of Detained and Disappeared Uruguayanswhich expressed its “maximum repudiation”, and was also condemned, among others, by the political force of Topolansky, the Frente Amplio, which although it did not allude to its statements, highlighted its commitment to the struggle of Mothers and Families.
Topolansky, historical leader of the Popular Participation Movement (MPP), assured in an interview that in some sectors of the left there are people who “they lie in the statements” on crimes against humanity linked to the last military dictatorship (1973-1985) with the aim of achieving convictions against certain soldiers. “They came to one of our comrades to say – no matter what political sector -: ‘I lied, I said this and that, and we put so-and-so in prison.’ And he answered: ‘I’m not going to say it.’ There they accuse you of being a traitor.”he stated. The former vice president added that, although they know the names of those who allegedly engaged in this practice, they will not reveal those identities. “We are not going to say it because we are not traitors or buttons,” he emphasized.
After the controversy, Mujica, a leader of the Frente Amplio, expressed his support for Topolansky. “I didn’t read the book, or what Lucía said, I don’t read the books about us, it’s very boring. Now, those things are known to us, yes. I’m not going to say that it was general, but there were people who came out with a lot of resentment and found that that was exactly what they went through. Not all, but I know there were cases”Mujica declared in an interview with the program Fácil Deviarse.
(With information from EFE)
