Paraguayan court orders pretrial detention of former president Santiago Peña in the Ueno Bank case
The judge ordered the former leader held at a military unit; the defense denies any flight risk and says he did not interfere in the bank's operations.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
Humberto Otazú, a criminal judge of guarantees for economic crimes, ordered on Saturday (7) the pretrial detention of former Paraguayan President Santiago Peña, who is under investigation in the Ueno Bank scandal, BBC News Mundo reported. According to the judge, Peña will be held at the Presidential Escort Regiment. At the hearing, the former president chose not to speak.
The decision came after the Public Prosecutor's Office named Peña as a defendant for alleged breach of trust and mismanagement for personal gain. Prosecutors argue that he intervened in decisions on placing and keeping public and pension funds at the bank, with whose business group he allegedly had economic and corporate ties. Prosecutors also requested a freeze on the former president's assets and funds, and similar measures against Carlos Carvallo, former head of the Central Bank of Paraguay, who is accused of failing in his duty to supervise the institution.
The defense denies any risk of flight or obstruction of the investigation and says Peña did not take part in the private bank's operations. Lawyer Ricardo Preda criticized the detention and told local media that his client had always been willing to answer to any investigation, like any citizen.
According to the BBC, state agencies had more than US$230 million at Ueno Bank in September, and the Itaipu hydroelectric plant said it had more than US$163 million deposited there, and that it has already taken legal action before prosecutors to recover them. The day before, protests outside Peña's home, where he was under house arrest after being removed from office by the Senate, led to his transfer to a military barracks.
Meanwhile, the interim president of the Central Bank, Pedro Acosta, said 1.196 million people have already received the state deposit guarantee over two days of payments. The intervention in the bank left about 3 million customers without access to their money.