Alejandro Vandenbroele got off the Witness Protection program

02/20/2020 - 21:05

• Clarín.com
• Politics

The repentant witness of the Ciccone case, Alejandro Vandenbroele , gets off the Witness Protection program. It was a day after refusing to have received money to testify against Amado Boudou, who is being held in the context of that case. He followed the path of Leonardo Fariña who had resigned from the plan in November 2019.

The information was now confirmed by journalist Nicolás Wiñazki in TN: "He feels threatened by the authorities who now run this witness program," he said. In the last hours, it was learned that the Program will remain under the Executive's orbit, through the Ministry of Justice conducted by Marcela Losardo.

Days ago, the Justice initiated an investigation to determine if, under the Witness Protection program, Vandenbroele received payments for 1.5 million pesos to open a boutique hotel in Mendoza and if that eventual disbursement influenced his statement against the Former Vice President Amado Boudou.

"Nobody paid me or offered me money to testify against Amado Boudou," Vandenbroele had said. He added: "I can understand that from a political sector they say that I am a repentant trout, but I cannot understand that certain sectors of the judiciary say that I am a repentant trout."

The investigation for alleged irregularities in the Vandenbroele statement began in February of this year, in relation to a note published by the news portal El Destape entitled "Macrismo put a boutique hotel on Alejandro Vandenbroele, a repentant key to condemning Amado Boudou. "

Vandenbroele told La Nación when asked about the hotel: "It is not a hotel, it is an inn. It is not the same. I cannot give details because I am subject to the confidentiality regime as a protected witness, but I can tell you that upon entering To that program, I had to stop working for security reasons and it is provided by law that each protected person be assigned a kind of 'monthly payment' to stay , first, and to reintegrate into society when the regime becomes more flexible. Do you want to know something else? Since mid-2019 they even stopped spinning that money. "

This same week, Amado Boudou had said from prison: " The Government of Macri paid witnesses and also judges with charges . The judge who convicted me was promoted by decree to the Federal Chamber, nor did it follow that he won a contest. Here there were witnesses, experts and trout judges. "

At the end of November, the repentant Leonardo Fariña had resigned from the Witness Protection Program. The former valijero, who had denounced part in a money laundering structure that involved Lázaro Báez, said he does not want to be "taken care of by the next government."

Among other things, he said at the time that he had a "conflict of interest" with the management he was going to take on December 10 (referring to the government of Alberto Fernández) because of the content of his confessions.

The Witness and Imputed Program has more than 200 people under this regime, but only about 15 witnesses who entered into corruption investigations such as Ciccone or the cause of the notebooks.

In this last group are the former Secretary of Public Works José López, arrested infraganti when he transferred 9 million dollars to a convent of General Rodríguez; Oscar Centeno , driver of Roberto Baratta, number 2 of Julio de Vido in Federal Planning and whose notebook of the coimas was the road map that Justice used to advance the investigation; and, until today, Alejandro Vandenbroele, whose testimony was key in the file for the purchase of the former Calconeo Ciccone.