President López Obrador today urged the federal Attorney General’s Office to apply itself to the task of arresting former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya and ex-Puebla governor Mario Marín.
The former is sought on corruption charges, the latter in connection with the 2005 torture of investigative journalist Lydia Cacho.
“What I have stated is that there mustn’t be impunity for anyone,” López Obrador said.
“They [Lozoya and Marín] might be able to evade justice for some time but they will be arrested because the responsible authorities have to apply themselves and do their job,” he added.
The president rejected any suggestion that his government is protecting the two men.
“What cannot be said is that they haven’t been arrested because we’re protecting them . . . That’s a lie. We’re not going to allow impunity in either of the two cases,” López Obrador said.
A warrant for the arrest of Lozoya was issued late last month in connection with the 2014 sale of a fertilizer plant to Pemex by steelmaker Altos Hornos de México.
The government says that the US $475 million Pemex paid for the plant was more than nine times its real value.
On June 5, a federal judge granted an injunction to the former state oil company chief that suspended the arrest warrant against him.
However, Judge Luz María Ortega Tlapa last week rescinded her own ruling because Lozoya was summoned to appear before the criminal court where he faces prosecution but failed to appear, a violation of the temporary suspension of his arrest warrant.
A lawyer for Lozoya, who has also been accused of receiving bribes from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht while at the helm of Pemex, insisted that his client is innocent of the charges against him.
Javier Coello Trejo said Lozoya is in Mexico City but claimed that he won’t be arrested because authorities will not be able to find him.
In the case of Marín, governor of Puebla between 2005 and 2011, a Quintana Roo court issued a warrant for his arrest in April.
He is accused of ordering Puebla police to arrest Cacho, who was detained in Cancún on defamation charges following the release of her book, The Demons of Eden, which exposed a pedophilia ring.
Cacho was tortured and abused while in custody, and the case became a national scandal when a tape was leaked of a conversation between one of the supposed leaders of the pedophilia ring, Kamel Nacif, and Marín plotting to punish the journalist.
Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said last month that a federal court requested a “red alert” from Interpol for Marin’s arrest on the same day that the arrest warrant was issued in Mexico.
However, Marín is not among the 57 Mexican nationals currently listed on the Interpol website.
Source: El Financiero (sp)
