The mayor of Recoleta, Daniel Jadue, has already completed his first night sleeping behind barsafter the Third Guarantee Court of Santiago decreed the precautionary measure of preventive detention against him.
Judge Paulina Moya’s decision has not been without criticism, despite the fact that in corruption cases involving mayors who are in office or even having already left office, such as Miguel Aguilera in San Ramón, Raúl Torrealba in Vitacura, José Luis Yáñez in Algarrobo, Luis Bertwar in San Fernando, among others, have been remanded in preventive detention facing charges such as tax fraud or bribery.
Daniel Jadue was insistent, even in his last minutes of freedom before entering the Captain Yaber Penitentiary Annex, that the “Popular Pharmacies” case and the crimes accused against him were about political persecution, to which various figures from the Party Communists have joined.
Preventive detention of Daniel Jadue
The vice president of the National Association of Prosecutors, prosecutor Patricia Ibarra, stated that the preventive detention of Mayor Jadue is due to the number of crimes and the evidence that was accepted by the court, to prove the accusations of the North Central Prosecutor’s Office.
“Given the number of crimes for which the investigation was formalized and the background information available in the investigation, to establish that there was participation as perpetrators of the people who were formalized, the Prosecutor’s Office requested the precautionary measure of preventive detention (…) “Ibarra said.
Comparisons of the procedural status of the mayor of Recoleta, Daniel Jadue, with the house arrest that was decreed for the mayor of Maipú and close to the UDI, Cathy Barriga, also accused of tax fraud, have abounded both on social networks and in the public opinion.
But, What difference is there between both cases that gave rise to dissimilar precautionary measures?
The former regional prosecutor of O’Higgins, Luis Toledo, pointed out that Jadue’s permanence in the position of mayor of Recoleta played an important role in the judge’s resolution, while in the case of Barriga, the Public Ministry failed to collect antecedents. to convince the guarantee court of their alleged participation in the crimes.
Jadue and Barriga
Meanwhile, the former chief prosecutor of Alta Complexidad Oriente, Carlos Gajardo, said he did not understand the difference in the reasoning and procedure of the magistrates between both cases, considering that both Jadue and Barriga were charged with highly serious crimes.
“It seems to me that both cases are equally serious. They have been charged with important crimes of corruption, especially fraud against the treasury for very million-dollar amounts, and even in the case of Cathy Barriga they were greater than 30 billion pesos,” Gajardo said.
adding that “In both cases the correct decision would have been to apply preventive detention. Not doing so in the case of Cathy Barriga was a mistake.”
Let us remember that in the coming days Jadue’s defense is expected to file the appeal that will seek to revoke the preventive detention ordered this Monday through the Court of Appeals of Santiago. For this you have a period of five consecutive days from the resolution of the Third Guarantee Court of Santiago.
