The oral trial against those allegedly involved in the case of illegal financing of politics by the SQM mining company began this Monday at the Third Oral Criminal Court of Santiago.
After eight years of investigation, the Public Ministry has filed charges of bribery, bribery or tax offenses against eight defendants, including former presidential candidate and leader of the Progressive Party of Chile (PRO), Marco Enríquez-Ominami, and former minister of Economics by Sebastián Piñera, Pablo Longueira.
"The SQM case is the most serious, complex and important that the Prosecutor's Office has had to investigate since the criminal procedure reform [in 2000]," says the former prosecutor of the plot, Carlos Gajardo, by phone.
The so-called "SQM case", which arose in 2015, investigates irregular payments to politicians from different political spectrums by the mining company controlled by the former son-in-law of Augusto Pinochet, Julio Ponce Lerou, whose fortune has its origins in the dictatorship of his former father-in-law. (1973-1990) and in the privatizations of state companies.
The Prosecutor's Office accuses the former general manager of SQM, Patricio Contesse, of irregular financing of politicians through invoices for services that were not actually provided between 2009 and 2015 for an amount greater than 8.5 million dollars.
The Public Ministry also accuses Longueira, who participated remotely this Monday, of receiving payments to favor the processing of a
mining
royalty law (a tax for that activity) that, according to the accusation, was drafted by SQM lawyers.
The former senator of the right risks 818 days in prison and fines for bribery.
Enríquez-Ominami is accused of tax crimes and can receive a sentence of up to four years in prison.
The former socialist deputy and four-time presidential candidate assured this morning that he wants the trial to take place.
"I want it to start to be able to show that all this has been an abuse, that it has a political bias, but that will be decided by the judges," he said.
A lithium mine of the Chemical and Mining Society (SQM) in the Atacama desert, in 2019. Cristobal Olivares (Bloomberg)
The Prosecutor's Office investigated 180 people, but most of the cases have been dismissed or suspended under certain conditions.
The other defendants are Longueira's secretary, Carmen Valdivieso;
former Christian Democrat deputy Roberto León;
the secretary of the presidency of the right-wing Independent Democratic Union (UDI) party, Marisol Cavieres;
the ex-secretary general of the Progressive Party, Cristián Warner, and the ex-ambassador in Prague during the government of Michelle Bachelet, Marcelo Rozas.
"The decisions of the Internal Revenue Service not to sue and that of (former national prosecutor) Jorge Abbott to limit the investigation have ended up with a very minor part in front of justice," says Gajardo.
However, the former prosecutor is pleased that the most serious accusation, bribery, is present.
“The accusation implies that a law of the Republic was drafted by the lawyers of the company that was most affected.
The illusion that the law is sovereign is broken," says Gajardo, who points out how "dramatic" it has been to learn about these types of events, such as the Penta case, the plot of tax fraud and illegal financing of political campaigns that launched one of the most important business groups in the country.
“I think it explains a series of events, including the social outbreak.
These investigations were one of the inputs.
Politically, Boric's choice cannot be explained without this case, which has to do with the prestige of the center-left.
Having established that those political forces very opposed to Pinochet received financing from the dictator's son-in-law was very hard and explains the defeats they have had in recent years, ”he adds.
The reading of the order —a document that summarizes the case—, where all the accusations are reviewed, the alleged amounts defrauded, the questioned invoices, among other details, will take about two weeks.
Once the initial part is completed, the arguments of the parties will come.
In total, the process can take up to two years, according to those involved.
The prosecution initially presented 14,609 documents as evidence —thousands have been excluded—, 651 witnesses and 52 experts.
The trial was scheduled to begin on February 1, but the car was not ready and the judge who was supposed to review it was on vacation.
The Supreme Court requested the opening of a summary for the judges before a "possible disciplinary responsibility" that they would have in the "delay and postponement" of the trial.
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