The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obradoraccused the Judiciary this Wednesday of being a “corrupt oligarchy” after a judge granted procedural freedom to the former director of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) Emilio Lozoya, main defendant in the Brazilian Odebrecht bribery network.
“The Judiciary is now dominated by the corrupt oligarchy, it is at the service of a corrupt minority, they are employees, they do not represent the people of Mexico,” the president said during his morning press conference.
The Mexican president referred to the decision of a judge who on Tuesday allowed Lozoya to continue his judicial process in house arrest, thus leaving the prison where he was held for just over two years.
Lozoya, who directed the state oil company from 2012 to 2016, under President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), sought his conditional release with a change of precautionary measures to house arrest with an electronic bracelet, but the decision had been postponed in several occasions.
About, Lopez Obrador He said that Lozoya’s freedom has to do with the judges “with the Judiciary, which leaves everyone free,” including alleged white-collar criminals and organized crime.
“They have always been at the service of an elite, but now openly and shamelessly and against us, we lose all cases, they protect companies that want to have control of the national electrical industry, foreign companies, they protect the influence peddlers, the corrupt, the pseudo-environmentalists, pseudo-defenders of human rights,” said.
And he predicted that the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) will probably appeal “if it can do so.”
“But it is a matter between the Prosecutor’s Office and the Judiciary and, the truth is, the Judiciary is rotten,” he remarked.
Lozoya, arrested in Spain at the beginning of 2020 and extradited to Mexico in the middle of that year, has two different proceedings before the Mexican Justice, one for the overpriced purchase of Agronitrogenados from businessman Alonso Ancira, of Altos Hornos de México, in exchange for bribes.
And the second case is for having allegedly received US$ 10.5 million in bribes from the Brazilian Odebrecht during the campaign and subsequent government of Peña Nieto, accused of using the money to approve the questioned reform that opened the energy sector to private investment.
The latter is what kept him in prison.
Lozoya was the highest-profile former prison official of Peña Nieto’s presidency, which was part of López Obrador’s anti-corruption fight.
The FGR has requested a sentence of up to 39 years in prison for Lozoya for criminal association, money laundering and bribery.
Source: Gestion
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