Desbordes counterattacks with a complaint for prevarication against the INDH

On June 11, the Council of the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) decided to take legal action against the Minister of the Supreme Court, María Teresa Letelier, and the former Minister of Defense of the Piñera government and current candidate for mayor for Santiago, Mario Desbordes (RN), due to the recent leak of WhatsApp conversations with the questioned former judge Juan Antonio Poblete, where steps are agreed in favor of the judge.

The decision of the INDH to file a complaint responds to the need to clarify acts of corruption and influence peddling in the Judiciary, as part of the so-called “judicial lobby”, which also includes the former Supreme Court Lamberto Cisternas and his son, the lawyer and leader of Renovación Nacional. , Gonzalo Cisternas Sobarzo.

Today, Mario Desbordes counterattacks, filing a complaint for prevarication against the INDH Council, arguing that the councilors acted “in an openly illegal manner, exorbiting the legally established powers.”

It is worth mentioning that a report by Ciper revealed the conversations between Desbordes and Poblete, in which the latter requested political support for Letelier’s candidacy to the Supreme Court. These conversations are the basis of the INDH’s complaint, which although it does not directly name Desbordes, mentions him 30 times, according to his own testimony.

The Desbordes document, sponsored by lawyer Agustín Mardones (former police officer, like the former minister) and recorded by Third, requests the seizure of the audio of the INDH session where the presentation of the complaint was agreed, suggesting possible interference by the Prosecutor’s Office in said determination. In addition, Ximena Chong, head of High Complexity Central North, and Jaime Retamal, prosecutor of the Army telephone spying case “Operation Topographer” are requested to be summoned to testify.

Desbordes, former RN helmsman, also directs his complaint against Francisco Ugás, advisor to the INDH, who is part of the case as a private complainant. The former minister requests that Ugás testify about his access to a BRIAC report and his relationship with former Army captain Rafael Harvey, whom he represents as a lawyer.

“There is no crime, no infraction”

The current candidate for the Municipality of Santiago—currently led by Irací Hassler (PC)—has maintained in various interviews that this action by the INDH is a “political operation” designed to harm his candidacy for mayor of the capital and favor Hassler’s re-election. In his complaint, he argues that the INDH “does not have active legitimacy to present a criminal complaint and that his Council does not have the prerogative to resolve said presentation without being legitimized.”

“The crime of influence peddling is in no way linked to the function entrusted to the INDH,” Desbordes points out in the document. He assures that the complaint is an unjustified criminal prosecution and that it directly points to him as a participant in the conversations revealed by Ciperconstituting—in his opinion—an infringement of his rights and a maneuver for political purposes.

“There is no crime, no infraction. I did not have any position of authority and the political management that was proposed to me at the time is a normal management when proposals come from the Executive to Congress. There is no other intervention, as several political leaders have already pointed out,” he states in the complaint.

Desbordes has also harshly criticized the Public Ministry, accusing the Prosecutor’s Office of not acting objectively and anticipating that he could initiate legal action against Prosecutor Chong. He reiterated that the conversations with Poblete do not constitute a crime and that the proposed political management was a normal practice in the legislative context.

On June 5, the former minister issued a public statement denying any illegality in his dialogue with the questioned former judge. He claimed that he intervened alone before the Senate vote, but published chats show the opposite.

The Desbordes libel requests various proceedings, waiting for them to be carried out, and trusts in the defense led by Mardones, who in April 2020 achieved the revocation of the total house arrest of police officers involved in torture during the outbreak of October 2019.