The Neuquén Appeals Court confirmed that the former undersecretary of the Environment of the province, Juan de Dios Luchelli, will go to trial for failure to fulfill the duties of a public official in the cause by transformers with Plottier PCBs.
Judge Liliana Deiub and her colleagues Nazareno Eulogio and Federico Sommer declared inadmissible the appeal presented by Eduardo Illiezca, defender of the only defendant in this investigation.
On May 16, the judge of Guarantees, Natalia Pelosso, elevated to trial the case in which the then official of the Environment Secretariat is accused of no carry out due follow-up for the removal and final disposal of transformers with PCBs, by the Plottier Public Services Cooperative.
The Environmental Crimes Prosecutor’s Office filed the open file against the president of the cooperative and councilor of the MPN, Sergio Luis Soto, and requested the dismissal of the vice president, Humberto Ciro Peñalver, who was once imprisoned on charges of contamination that was dangerous to health.
The research was developed in the context of a phenomenal dispute between Pelosso and chief prosecutor Maximiliano Breide Obeid, after the magistrate did not accept the formulation of charges against Soto.
The official cited as witnesses for the trial, among others, to former minister Jorge Lara, current president of Corfone, and to former undersecretary Ricardo Esquivel. The main argument raised by the defense is that Luchelli’s role was not to promote a series of files that, according to the prosecution, were shelved during his administration.
The expected penalty for this crime is less than three yearsso that the oral debate will take place before a single-person tribunal.
Control of the final disposal of devices with PCB It is key, since it is a carcinogenic toxic that is used to cool transformers.
