Emilio Lozoya: judge orders the imprisonment of the main witness in bribes from Odebrecht in Mexico

A judge of Mexico imposed this Wednesday, at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, preventive detention on the former director of Pemex Emilio Lozoya (2012-2016), accused of receiving bribes from Odebrecht, after more than a year facing the judicial process in freedom.

The Federal Judiciary Council informed the press that the Attorney General’s Office requested the precautionary measure because Lozoya It no longer meets the so-called opportunity criterion, which grants procedural benefits in exchange for collaborating with Justice.

The former director of Pemex He declared himself “innocent” and proposed an “agreement to repair the damage”, but Judge Artemio Zúñiga accepted the preventive detention requested by the Public Ministry due to the risk of the defendant’s flight.

The measure was supported by the Federal Government’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and by the current management of Pemex, which are involved as prosecutors in the case.

Likewise, the judge postponed the hearing for another month to close the investigation and decide the date of the trial, which will take place on December 3.

Defense of Lozoya He had asked to postpone it for two months, while the Prosecutor’s Office wanted to close the investigation and go to trial as soon as possible.

Lozoya, director of the state oil company during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), was captured last year in Spain and extradited to Mexico, where he closed an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office for which he accused other politicians in exchange for not stepping on jail, a pact in force until today.

The authorities accuse him of having received close to 10.5 million dollars in bribes from the Brazilian construction company Oderecht in exchange for public contracts for Pemex.

To free jail, the former official had accused Peña Nieto and his Treasury Secretary Luis Videgaray of having used those bribes for the 2012 election campaign and to buy opposition legislators to pass the 2013 energy reform.

The change of opinion of the Prosecutor’s Office comes after last month the former official was caught eating in a luxurious restaurant in the capital, which caused enormous indignation in the country and was even condemned by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In addition to the Odebrecht case, Lozoya is accused of having bought at a premium when he was director of Pemex a useless fertilizer plant from the company Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) in exchange for bribes.

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