During the day this Tuesday, the Fourth Guarantee Court of Santiago reviewed the preventive detention of the former director of the PDI Sergio Muñoz, who has been in preventive detention for a month and a half after being formalized for revealing secret causes to the criminal Luis Hermosilla, in one of the aspects that emerged from the so-called “audio” case and after the seizure of the lawyer’s cell phone. Despite the argumentative attempts of his defense, Juan Carlos Manríquez, the court decided to reject the request for nighttime house arrest – and total subsidy – due to the seriousness of the facts investigated. The former high-ranking civil police officer will then remain in prison.
At the hearing, in which he was present Third, lawyer Manríquez presented a series of antecedents that in his opinion demonstrated the spirit of collaboration: the fact that he had voluntarily opened his bank accounts and testified in the case, even one day before being charged before the court for violation of secrets. Along with this, the defender referred to statements that exist in the file that is processed by the Eastern regional prosecutor, Lorena Parra, and by the chief prosecutor Felipe Sepúlveda.
It should be remembered that this aspect arises as a result of tests carried out on the lawyer’s mobile phone. Luis Hermosilla, This after Ciper revealed the audio in which the criminal lawyer – together with the lawyer Leonarda Villalobos and the businessman Daniel Sauer – commented on alleged payments of bribes to officials of the Commission for the Financial Market (CMF) and the SII. It was then that Carabineros seized the professional’s cell phone and there the Eastern Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office discovered communications between the former Interior advisor and the now former PDI boss. In the messages they exchanged, Muñoz gave Hermosilla confidential information about important judicial cases.
In the statements that have been taken these months, the one made on April 19 by former Minister of Justice Isidro Solís stands out. One of the things being investigated is the alleged “help” that Hermosilla would have provided to Muñoz to become director of the civil police. The lawyer’s large network of judicial contacts in various matters has also been built. The former authority ignores something about that: “In reality, I believe that lawyer Hermosilla has never had the power or influence that is attributed to him in the conversations that have been known.”.
He added that “according to my assessment, Luis is a person who has many acquaintances, transversally, who is or was an influential lawyer, but in no case with the power to appoint court ministers or judges as has been maintained”.
Among the accusations, the Prosecutor’s Office attributes to Muñoz having revealed the secret of several investigations into Hermosilla, including the case against the former mayor of Vitacura Raúl Torrealba, against the former mayor Felipe Guevara and the investigation into the Dominga case, which involved the businesses of the late former president Sebastián Piñera.
In recent weeks, all the defenders of these cases have paraded at the Public Ministry, claiming not to have received the information that Hermosilla had and – in biblical terms – denying it three times.
The first of them was Cristian Bawlitza, lawyer for the former communal chief of Vitacura. Attorney Manríquez used this testimony to explain the tenor of the interrogation and how the investigations would not have been affected by the transfer of information from his client. “(Bawlitza) points out that Hermosilla does not have nor had any participation in the case, being a third party unrelated to the investigation. He points out that he never met Hermosilla, that he does not know him personally. The other defense lawyers did not meet with Hermosilla either.”
Along with this, he assures that the lawyer of the so-called “Tronco” “points out that he never met or had contact with the former director of the PDI, Mr. Muñoz Yáñez. Asked about the manuscript (which Muñoz sent to Hermosilla), he says he never had knowledge of it. “There was no reason for information to be given to Hermosilla or anyone else.”
Piñera’s historic lawyer, the criminal lawyer, also testified Juan Domingo Acosta, who – according to what is maintained among lawyers in the square – never had a close or good relationship with Hermosilla. Before the Prosecutor’s Office, paraphrased Manríquez, the head of the defense for the Minera Dominga case, assured that “in the Dominga case the lawyers were him, Mr. Samuel Donoso and the lawyers from his office (…) Hermosilla did not have any intervention in the case, did not represent any defendant, did not advise any of the required entities”.
What’s more, Acosta assured that “he never had a meeting where Luis Hermosilla was present. He never spoke with him either in person or in any other way about this cause.. “She never received emails or any other messages from Mr. Hermosilla about the case.”
When asked if there was any reason why Sergio Muñoz should provide information to Luis Hermosilla, he responded: “According to the knowledge I have of the case there was no reason, no justification or any usefulness of knowing that information that is not through official means.”
Former authorities from Piñera’s second government also testified in the case. Mainly to clarify what could have been the efforts of Hermosilla – external advisor to the Ministry of the Interior – in the election of Muñoz as director of the PDI after the departure of Héctor Espinozaa client of the criminal lawyer at that time. “Mission accomplished”Hermosilla wrote to the then prefect of the civil police when his name was ratified as the highest police authority.
In this regard, the former undersecretary Juan Francisco Galli gave an account of the process to appoint Muñoz. “He says that he does not remember having received calls from Luis Hermosilla or from people outside the ministry to influence the decision-making by the President of the Republic (appointment of Muñoz),” Manríquez read in court.
I add that Galli maintained that “I was never aware that this was the case (that Hermosilla had contact with Piñera), both in the personal and professional areas, and in specific government issues it was through the Ministry of the Interior.”. He added that “(Sergio Muñoz) never sent me confidential information outside of his position and nor did I ask him for it.”
The former minister Rodrigo Delgado He also had to attend the Prosecutor’s Office on April 4. There he said: “I want to be emphatic in pointing out that I don’t remember having received a call from anyone external or having been in meetings with people who suggested names for that position. Absolutely”.
He added that “on the issue of the appointment of the director of the PDI I absolutely rule out that Mr. Hermosilla spoke with me (…) As I said, I only (conversed with him) regarding the cases that he was handling on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior. In the 16 months that I was there, I never saw him in person in La Moneda, nor did I know that he had had meetings with the President, much less heard the President refer to Mr. Hermosilla.
