Defense of César Duarte, former governor of Chihuahua, seeks to continue his process in freedom

The defense of César Duarte seeks to continue his process in freedom (Special)

The former governor of Chihuahua, César Horacio Duarte Jáquez, could be released on May 4 if his defense manages to dismiss the process against him for his alleged responsibility for crimes of embezzlement and criminal association during his term (2010-2016). .

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The former state president is prosecuted under investigation folder 3041/2019 where he is accused of the crimes of embezzlement and criminal association, by allegedly diverting 96.6 million pesos from the treasury.

This folder is the only one on which the request for extradition to the US was based, so that when it was dismissed, the door would be open for the PRI member to leave jail.

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Duarte Jáquez has been in pretrial detention since June 2022, when he was extradited from the United States to Mexico. It should be noted that the tricolor politician was detained in Florida since 2021.

This Thursday morning the hearing began; However, the former PRI member did not appear before the control judge, Delia Valentina Menéndez, in the room of the Superior Court of Justice in the state capital.

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In this regard, the defendant’s defense justified that the actuary did not duly notify his client, so the former president did not know that he should be present.

For this reason, the control judge declared a recess in the hearing until César Duarte could attend the proceeding in person.

One of the lawyers went to the Aquiles Serdán Social Readaptation Center to process the official letters and obtain permission for the transfer of Duarte before the control judge.

The Chihuahuan is accused of aggravated embezzlement and electoral crime, in one of the cases he was charged with the diversion of 96 million pesos through simulated contracts with front companies. In addition, he had another 20 accusations by the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office.

At the federal level, the Special Prosecutor for Electoral Crimes (Fepade) points him out for alleged electoral crimes, by diverting money to campaigns of PRI candidates.

Duarte is inmate at the Social Reintegration Center (Cereso) number 1, located in the municipality of Aquiles Serdán, in Chihuahua. On March 25, three years after he entered the prison, the former governor wrote a letter addressed to the state Superior Court of Justice, in which he accused that his case is being used as political loot.

“Almost three years after being deprived of my freedom and my assets, I stopped being politically persecuted and I am only a political booty for a very questionable political interest,” he told the presiding magistrate, Myriam Hernández Acosta, in the letter released on March 29.

However, the former official assured that this does not mean that he seeks pardon, but rather a fair trial in which he affirmed “it will give them the assurance that what was said about me was only a great theater.”

*Information in development

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