Sending weapons to Bolivia: the case fell to judge Alejandro Catania

Search by illegal shipment of weapons to Bolivia by the government of Mauricio Macri in November 2019 for support the putschists who overthrew Evo Morales was in charge of Judge in economic criminal matters Alejandro Catania. The decision was taken on Wednesday by the National Chamber of Appeal in Economic Criminal Matters after a conflict of jurisdiction. The Alberto Fernández government’s complaint for “aggravated smuggling” was in the hands of magistrate Javier López Biscayart while Catania had a similar one presented by former Marist Eduardo Freiler. That is to say, there were two files for the same events which were now unified and they remained in the hands of the President of Federal Court No. 4.

The chambermaid Carolina Robiglio decided that the case involving Macri, Patricia Bullrich, Marcos Peña and other ex-changemitas officials be justified in the Catania court, after a “negative jurisdictional conflict” arose, that is to say, none of the magistrates felt they should stay with the case. Lopez Biscayart argued that for a few hours the first complaint filed for the shipment of arms to Bolivia was that of Freiler, that is, the one that Catania had, and that therefore it should be the court that first prevented whoever gets both files.

Catania, on the other hand, considered that his colleague’s investigation was more advanced – it is the one conducted by the national government via the Ministries of Justice and Security and AFIP, which presented a lot of documentation -, it was therefore López Biscayart who was to keep the whole affair. Among other things, he mentioned that he was on leave when the case came to his court.

The maid Robiglio agreed with López Biscayart and did not follow the line raised by the prosecutor before the Chamber, Gabriel Pérez Barberá, who had decided that the case would be concentrated in court No. 9 of the jurisdiction.

In a 12 page resolution that you accessed Discovery, Robiglio stated that Both cases shared the performance of the same prosecutor, Claudio Navas Rial, and that the proceedings for both cases “were carried out in a coordinated manner” by him. For example, it was Navas Rial who imputed the accused. The chambermaid also underlined that “the two cases are at the initial stage of the summary, without having known significant advances having determined a variation of the procedural stage in one or the other of them”.

Robiglio differed from Chamber Prosecutor Pérez Barberá because, although he shares the position that “the solution of the case must be adopted while trying to promote a better and faster administration of justice”, it must “ensure the constitutional guarantee of the natural judge “, something which, in his opinion, was at stake.

The judge was then inclined to return the unified case (complaint of the government plus that of Freiler, since they share the procedural object) to Catania because it was she who prevented the first, that is to say which was bypassed first.

How does the matter continue now? Catania will have to decide to delegate the investigation to prosecutor Navas Rial, a key step for the future of the process because he was also involved in the other file. Then you must decide to carry out the test measures that had been requested in the case that was in charge of López Biscayart, like driving a visual inspection on the Hercules C-130 of the Air Force in which the 70,000 anti-tumult ammunition and more than 500 gendarmerie grenades which ended up in the hands of the Bolivian putschists were transferred on November 12, 2019.

The case of the shipment of arms to Bolivia has already accused Macri, the former Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich (the gendarmerie was under its orbit), the former chief of staff Marcos Peña, to the former Minister of Defense Oscar Aguad, Al former Chancellor Jorge Faurie, the former Secretary for Strategic Affairs Fulvio Pompeo, the former Ambassador to Bolivia Normando Álvarez García and members of the gendarmerie, such as the former head of the force, Gerardo Otero.

A decisive step in the process will be when the judge decides whether to call the accused to investigate.