Strong dispute over Petroquímica Bermúdez and a serious case of environmental damage that could be closed

The question involves environmental and emotional aspects of primary importance. According to the technical experts who marched in this case, around Petroquímica, 21 hectares were affected by spills of chlorine, which corroborates a critical report of the Secretariat of the environment of the province. This document indicated that the factory had deteriorated facilities, unsuitable for handling these chemicals, with inspections that show the lack of maintenance of accessories, pipes and storage tanks for hazardous substances.

What was discussed during the public hearing? Prosecutors Luis Schiappa Pietra and Matías Edery argue that Judge Tutau closed the case because, in a maliciously insinuated manner, Serjal gave an instruction to that effect and San Lorenzo prosecutor Juan Carlos Ledesma had to comply. by the principle of conformity. of a higher order. Schiappa Pietra and Edery believe Serjal did it to protect the business. Judge Tutau, they said, lacked a significant amount of information on this case that Serjal wanted to close. According to the accusers, the judge was the victim of the drafting of a deceptive resolution.

In order to move towards the closure, the deputy prosecutor, Gustavo Luzzini, contradicted a decree of the former governor Miguel Lifschitz, which asked him to investigate a pollution offense.

What Tutau has done is accept the proposal to stay the criminal case against Taselli, one of the most powerful businessmen in the country according to prosecutors, in exchange for a test of desirability, which is an outcome which implies reparation but suspends the imposition of the penalty. . .

“The stakes are high in these hearings”Schiappa Pietra pointed out in her plea. “Twice the public prosecutor, the general prosecutor, the former regional prosecutor, the high authorities of the environment, the prosecutors and the judges passed. For society, it is a question of clarifying the way in which public officials defend their rights. How the state stands up to employers. How you position yourself in the face of adverse events. How does the judiciary present itself as an agency for the ultimate safeguard of the rights and guarantees of the people ”, he declared.

Prosecutors’ allegation was that the former regional prosecutor’s instruction was deliberately fraudulent. They said he summoned Ledesma to a shopping mall to give him the indication. That in Serjal’s indication and in the whole of the position of the public prosecutor (MPA), it was not taken into account that to propose a stay of the trial on evidence (probation) in a case like this , the public interest does not have to be compromised. And that the position of the victims has never been consulted.

“Serjal tried to convince us that there was no reason for the state to care about criminal prosecution of a tainted company with a severity that we cannot yet measure.. All the shapes were broken. We cannot have criminal action as we please. I imagine a state attorney in the United States who resigns from the criminal case in a context where there are 21 contaminated hectares. He would last very little in function, ”said Schiappa Pietra.

With a fiery proclamation of his arguments, he pointed out to Judge Carlos Andrés Gazza that the most important thing in this sequence of hearings, where ultimately what is defined is whether the order of a magistrate who closes a case is valid or not, is the goal. “How are we going to admit that a prosecutor who collaborates in cases where there are 5,000 prisoners suddenly ask us for an alternative solution precisely with a powerful businessman who represents an unusual clientele of the penal system. This does not happen with the theft of a wallet ”.

Read more: Controversy over suspension of hearing against Serjal over another corruption case

The prosecutors’ proposal is based on a careful examination of the way in which the state’s desire to archive the case has been constructed. “At no time during this hearing was environmental damage mentioned. Whoever made the decision (for Tutau) had no information on contamination levels at Petroquímica Bermúdez. The case with this hearing is that the property is all contaminated. It’s the case. Seal a lot of future discussions. What will Santa Fe do with a contaminated property? Do we, as a state, have the decision to charge the responsibility for pollution? What about an illegal order to forgive contamination by environmental damage that caused schoolgirls to pass out? There has been a lot of talk here about remediation. Repairing the environment is very expensive. There are millions of dollars Taselli will have to pay if we can charge. This is what is defined by opening the case or by not doing so ”, I replaced Schiappa Pietra.

Taselli’s lawyer Jorge Ilharrescondo responded that prosecutors presented a series of arguments he described as “Gimmicky but not efficient”. He argued that beyond the emotion surrounding the case, it is not proven that in an area which is a circle of companies like Celulosa, which is next door, it is Petroquímica Capitán Bermúdez who actually produced the contamination. He alluded to the fact that witnesses called in previous hearings were unable to report it. But he stressed that the debate before the judge was eminently technical: that prosecutors seek to contradict a directive derived from the same body to which they belong.

“The state itself cannot retrace its steps and undo what it has done by action or omission of all its property. The principle is the validity of the theory of proper acts. The prosecution has no basic rule. AMP is a. And it was he who urged at the time to promote the resolution which is now in crisis. It is unacceptable. This is a proposal for a res judicata review. I reported it and they didn’t answer me. And it is wrong that it is a file. It is a criterion of expediency. What Tutau has done is adjusted to the law. The prosecutor gave up going forward, ”observed Ilharrescondo.

Previously, Schiappa Pietra had underlined that “the second prosecutor decided that an act should not be prosecuted by which all the water tables have been contaminated and the mouth which takes water in Bermúdez is affected”. However, Ilharrescondo refuted it, claiming that the drinking water that feeds this town does not come from the mouth indicated by the prosecutor.

Prosecutors have insisted that Tutau’s decision must fall because it is part of an illegal order. The judge, they argued, was misled. “No one told him who were the businessmen or the administrative course that this case had. (The administrative power) had had serious problems with the company because they had never met anyone. There were chlorine gas leaks, there was no corrective response, they kept contaminating. This has been said by the administrators. The judge had to assess whether this company complied, ”said Schiappa Pietra.

Without citing Serjal’s previous cases in the allegation, the prosecutor pointed out that the currently detained official maintained that his decision was clearly illegal. “It was issued without charging any facts or individuals. Without defining what the conflict was. Without establishing how much Taselli was going to pay for the damage he caused to the province. When was this discussed during these hearings? ”Said Schiappa Pietra. “No one has inquired about a chlorine gas leak in which 20 girls passed out in a school. No one even asked the dispensary for data on respiratory illnesses caused by these fumes, whether there had been spontaneous abortions, whether the cancer condition had increased. Nobody cared because it was a problem. No one asked the locals for anything. It was very easy to do an assessment of how people were, ”added Edery.

Read more: Environmental threat due to the remains of the old Electroclor in Bermúdez

One of the most important issues was that the state attorney’s office had refrained from moving forward with the provincial decree it was asking to investigate. “The hearing was going to try to close the case that the governor had asked to open because of the release of chlorine gas which was used as a chemical weapon during the First World War. The governor’s word was tainted. Lifschitz wanted what he signed. Lifschitz ordered the prosecution to denounce the case criminally. This is what Governor Lifschitz said “Schiappa Pietra said, and asserted that Pablo Saccone’s statement at these hearings at his discretion will go down in history. “We heard the public prosecutor say that the complaint had been lodged under pressure. But he had a decree issued by the governor to advance on a crime. This is how the rights of Santa Fe were defended. What problem!”

Defenders of the deputy prosecutor stressed that the prosecutors’ proposal is inadmissible. “You cannot appeal a case that was not appealed at the time. The AMP was wrong “they quarreled. They also pointed out that the prosecutors present at the hearing went against the body to which they belong which urged to settle the case without prosecuting a crime.