The interim Attorney General,
Eduardo Casal
, convened a table for this week in order to deepen the policies against the increase of
organized crime
within federal penitentiaries.
The
novelty
is the incorporation of the Administrative Investigations Prosecutor's Office (PIA) in order to advance criminal investigations in the face of the possible
collusion of officials and prison staff
in the crimes under analysis.
Attorney Eduardo Casal.
Photo Juano Tesone.
The call occurs in the midst of one of the most critical moments that Rosario lives in the hands of the drug traffickers and the accusations of Alberto Fernández.
The President reduced the crisis that Rosario and Santa Fe are experiencing to his fight with the Supreme Court of Justice.
He argued that if it were not for the "assault" of the Judicial Council - the body responsible for appointing judges and sanctioning them in case of poor performance -
the positions of the courts responsible for investigating drug trafficking
would not be vacant .
The official information that emerges from the Council itself indicates the opposite.
The person responsible for the fact that 26% of the Courts are without a titular magistrate is President Fernández.
"In the Council there are no pending contests, they were all carried out, the order of merit, the shortlists were put together and they were sent to the Executive Branch," they told
Clarín
.
For the Senate to vote on the appointment of a judge, this list must be submitted by President Alberto Fernández, something that has not yet happened.
The data: the Federal Court 1 of Rosario has concluded its contest (number 387) and the shortlist has already been assembled by the Executive Power to be sent to the Senate.
That
still has not happened
despite the haste and the constant demands of the Association of Magistrates for the charges to be covered.
The same occurs with the Federal Court 1 of San Nicolás.
The contest carried out by the Council of the Magistracy, number 401, concluded and the shortlist was sent to the National Executive Branch, which is still postponing its submission to Congress for voting and appointment.
Focusing on the province of Santa Fe, the report shows that in Rosario the Federal Oral Court 2 has three vacant positions.
That contest, 390, is also held by Alberto Fernández.
As regards Court 3, it has not yet been enabled.
This circumstance generates constant delays in oral debates because they must be covered with subrogations.
Few judges for many positions.
This institutional crisis that produces that almost 30% of the charges are not covered, also contemplates the prosecutor's offices that are in the same situation.
This causes investigations to be carried out with greater delay due to the lack of resources.
With this puzzle of incomplete charges, the Attorney General observes with concern another phenomenon already noticed and ignored by the current government of Alberto Fernández: the
constant growth of organized crime from federal penitentiaries.
In 2021, the Narcocriminal Prosecutor's Office (PROCUNAR) in charge of the attorney general,
Diego Iglesias
, submitted to the then controller of the Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF) a detailed detail of the
imprisoned drug leaders
who continued to give orders, committing crimes, from their places of detention.
The interim attorney Eduardo Casal, raised the conclusions to the Ministry of Justice -in charge of
Martín Soria
- on whom the SPF depends- with a series of recommendations.
In two years, judicial sources reported that they had not received any type of response and that nothing had changed inside the prisons.
On the contrary: the trend shows that criminal activities continued.
Faced with this scenario, the Attorney General convened a working group through the Secretariat of the Institutional Coordination Secretariat -directed by
Juan Manuel Olima-
, to "deepen the coordination that they have been developing between PROCUNAR and the PIA in relation to the prevention and investigation of organized drug crime that has been committed from prisons”, details the high note and to which
Clarín
agreed .
On this occasion, PROCUNAR requested the intervention of the PIA by Attorney General
Sergio Rodríguez
, with a specific objective: the development of criminal investigations that represent some degree of "complicity of prison staff."
This is in response to something already denounced by prosecutor Iglesias in his 2021 report: crimes committed inside prisons, which include the circulation and use of electronic devices, could not be possible without the collusion of those who work in
prisons
.
The working group had been set up when the prosecutor's office specializing in drug crime submitted the first report.
The conclusions exposed a critical situation: "Everything shows that the arrest and conviction of those responsible (narco leaders) are not enough to dismantle the complex structure of drug criminal organizations and stop their illegal activities."
Since then, a series of recommendations
have been submitted to the SPF
, 18 in total, in order to exercise effective control within the penitentiaries, ranging from greater searches, control of the visits that prisoners involved in criminal organizations receive, the time of use of public telephones, placing cell phone jammers in the pavilions, the implementation of a deeper criteria regarding how to distribute the members of the narco gangs in prisons, among others.
Almost two years have elapsed since that report and subsequent suggestions, and judicial sources assured that no response was obtained.
The situation adds another difficulty, exposed in these terms by judges and prosecutors, the SPF no longer has the area of criminal investigation within prisons.
It was dismantled by order of Alberto Fernández on the grounds that
the Macrista management had used it for illegal espionage tasks.
The Association of Magistrates will request the Executive Power to reinstate the investigation area within the prisons, something that the PROCUNAR also consigned as necessary.
They understand that it is a way of knowing in detail the movements of the narco leaders, intercepting the orders they distribute through the illegal possession of cell phones, among other actions that allow them to retain power over criminal organizations despite being deprived of their liberty. .
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