Prosecutor Alejandro Gertz denounced for torture by one of the defendants in the 'Odebrecht case'

Alejandro Gertz Manero, attorney general of the Republic, at a press conference at the National Palace. Presidency (CUARTOSCURO)

The former director of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) Carlos Treviño has denounced the Mexican attorney general, Alejandro Gertz Manero, for torture against Emilio Lozoya in the Odebrecht case.

According to the complaint filed last Friday and advanced by

, the prosecutor and his right-hand man, Deputy Attorney General Juan Ramos, carried out "a series of systematic acts" to pressure Lozoya and his family.

Thus, the document describes, the Public Ministry obtained a conditional statement "that is not truthful" in which it blames several people for being part of a bribery network, including Treviño.

This is the latest in a series of serious accusations made in recent months against the head of the Attorney General's Office (FGR).

"The complaint of false facts signed by Mr. Emilio Lozoya Austin was obtained through psychological or mental torture perpetrated directly by the head of the Attorney General's Office," the document reads.

The latest accusation against Gertz indicates that, according to a ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, prosecutors in Mexico cannot take statements under torture, and that if they did, those words would not have legal validity.

Treviño's lawyer, Oscar Zamudio, explains that under this operation it is not possible to trust the veracity of Lozoya's statement that points against his client.

"Information obtained to incriminate someone for the practice of torture is never reliable," the document says.

If the complaint proceeds, the accusation against several former officials would be dropped.

Treviño, who held the position of director of Pemex between November 2017 and November 2018 – just before the end of Enrique Peña Nieto's six-year term – was accused by Lozoya of having received bribes of four million pesos from the Brazilian construction company .

In November of last year, a judge signed an arrest warrant against him and Interpol issued a file to locate him.

So far, he remains on the run.

The complaint against Gertz is a review of what was published by the media, which relates how the prosecutor operated in the case of the former director of Pemex, specifically in the Odebrecht case.

As this newspaper reported in July, the FGR managed to sit down to negotiate with the father of the former director of Pemex, Emilio Lozoya Thalmann, in October 2019, after making hundreds of wiretaps and surveillance reports and when Lozoya and his sister were fugitives and his mother remained in detention in Germany.

During those months, the Lozoyas received instructions from Gertz and his right-hand man to avoid carrying out the judicial processes from prison.

That advice, described as a crime by some experts, was reflected in the leaked listening.

The orientation that the family received also included the specific steps to follow so that her mother, Gilda Austin y Solis, obtained house arrest.

“Gertz Manero subjected Mr. Lozoya Thalmann to degrading treatment so that he agreed to comply with imposed conditions that implied the renunciation of rights, both for him and for his two children.

All in exchange for his wife being released, which is strictly prohibited, ”accuses Treviño.

The complaint ensures that the Prosecutor's Office "offered undue benefits" to the family of Lozoya Austin and acted "through threats, accusations and pressure against him and his relatives to get him to sign a complaint of false facts

."

This, according to Treviño, is added to the fact that the Public Ministry "forced to revoke and change the defender of his trust and to withdraw protection claims", in what Treviño considers, several violations of the law.

The evidence that he presents are the audios released by the press "in which the aforementioned public servants openly commit acts of torture."

Zamudio has taken the case to the International Advocacy Observatory, in France, because he assures that the prosecutor has tried to put him aside from this legal case.

“It was ordered that a criminal investigation be opened against me for having defended my client Carlos Treviño from the torture that the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic also sought to perpetrate against him, through the systematic abuse of preventive detention to which they unjustifiably sought to subject him. ”, says the email he sent to the organization.

The new accusation against prosecutor Gertz is now added to a series of accusations made against him for abuse of authority.

Numerous people have claimed that he uses the power of the FGR to pursue the causes of his personal interest and operate illegally.

The most striking case was perhaps that of his political family, whom the prosecutor persecuted for the alleged murder of his brother.

A process that reached the Supreme Court, who turned his back on the head of the Prosecutor's Office.

Another point was the complaint filed by the former legal adviser of the Presidency, Julio Scherer, for influence peddling also in the Lozoya case.

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