He 7th Guarantee Court of Santiago accepted an appeal for reconsideration by lawyer Agustín Martínez Costa, representing former Minister of Defense Mario Desbordes, and declared inadmissible the complaint for influence peddling presented by the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) as plaintiff in the case of the so-called Operation Surveyor .
The INDH’s legal action was initiated after the agency received a report from the PDI – prepared based on the Army espionage case – which gave an account of the actions that the former judge had carried out. Juan Antonio Pobletevia former minister Mario Desbordes, to supposedly promote the arrival of the minister Maria Teresa Letelier to the Supreme Court.
The court had declared the complaint admissible, but reversed its decision considering the approach of the Overflow Defense.
This, when evaluating that Law 20,405, which regulates the INDH, grants the organization standing to file a complaint only for the crimes established therein, among which is not the illegal act for which the entity headed by Consuelo Contreras made its presentation.
Judge Christian Alejandro Azócar Carmona In its resolution, it stated that the aforementioned regulations distinguish criminal complaints from other legal actions that the INDH “may bring in accordance with its own powers, defining a specific framework for their exercise.”
“In light of the above, without prejudice to the above, the court noting that the facts constitute a crime, the background information shall be considered a complaint and sent in its entirety to the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the corresponding purposes,” it added.
The national prosecutor, Angel Valenciaappointed the regional prosecutor of Valparaíso, Claudia Perivancich to analyze these events, in parallel to the original investigation by the North Central Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office.
According to information from Ciper, within the framework of the investigation into the telephone interceptions of officials from the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) of journalist Mauricio Weibel and soldiers who reported corruption in their institution, in April 2023 the North Central Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office seized the mobile phone of the former judge of the Court of Appeals of Santiago, Juan Antonio Poblete. When analyzing the communications recorded on the device, dialogues were accessed via messaging that account for Poblete’s efforts with figures from the world of courts and politics to favor certain candidates for positions in the Judiciary.
Mario Desbordes, member of the National Renewal Party and candidate for mayor of Santiago from Chile Vamosaccused political ends in the INDH complaint and filed a complaint against its advisors for an alleged crime of administrative prevarication.
