After learning that 3 magistrates of the Oral Court of Arica presented excuses or were disqualified from being part of the Chamber that will judge the Los Gallegos Clan – the operational arm of the Aragua Train in Chile -, the oral judge Sergio Álvarez Cáceres decided to speak exclusively with The counterto clarify the link he declared with one of the convicts in this case and what his recusal meant to join the triad of magistrates who will take over this process that will begin on April 22.
Álvarez specified that the friendly relationship that he revealed for the information of the parties to the trial refers to his participation in amateur soccer teams in leagues in Arica, where he would have coincided on several occasions with one of the convicted members of the Clan de Los Gallegos. This is the owner of 2 nightclubs, Álvaro Muñoz Sotomayor, who opted for an abbreviated procedure last January, after the Public Ministry investigated his relationship with the criminal gang, by maintaining young foreigners who were forced to prostitute themselves and pay money to the organization for the exercise of the sex trade.
The owner of the Ibiza and Hollywood nightclubs, two public limited companies that were dissolved by determination of the same court, was sentenced to 3 years and one day for money laundering, 541 days for human trafficking for sexual exploitation (since in court of the prosecution cooperated in the investigation) and 61 days for being part of a criminal association.
Regarding the link with Muñoz, the magistrate revealed that “I have been an amateur soccer player all my life. I have played in Santiago in lower leagues of professional teams until before entering university. I have always played in different amateur teams in Arica. In one of those many teams, like in so many that I have played, I shared a dressing room with him.”
Álvarez stated that he decided to reveal this background before the Committee of Judges of the Oral Court: “for transparency I said, I am not disqualified in this case, as I have done in other cases, but I want to declare that I know this man, so that “The other party sees and says whether one is impartial or not.”
In effect, what the magistrate did was certify before the court that the cause of recusal of article 196, paragraph 15 of the Organic Code of Courts supported him, that is, “the judge has a friendship with one of the parties that is manifested by acts of close familiarity.”
This cause was validated by the Public Criminal Defender’s Office, an entity that decided to represent her on February 22 when the court was established, as well as the inability claimed by Judge Eduardo Rodríguez Muñoz. Both causes were finally accepted by the Oral Court, leaving out the 2 judges of the judicial chamber that will administer justice in the Clan de Los Gallegos process.
The link: “Football things”
Judge Álvarez clarified that he has not had a friendship with the convicted businessman Álvaro Muñoz Sotomayor. “I don’t know him in his private life, nor his family, he doesn’t know mine. I don’t know what he does mostly. I imagine he knows, because he is more public, what I do. I have never talked apart from this sports topic,” he said.
Regarding how he interacted with the convicted businessman, he said that “I have known Álvaro Muñoz for about 6, 7 or 8 years. Since then I haven’t seen him until a couple of months ago. We also met on a field, he for one team and I for another. We greet each other, hello, bye, how are you. And he told me something about his situation, something that I was not clear about either, because I do not have access to the cases of the Guarantee Court. “I don’t know who is in that cause.”
As he remembers, in a conversation that would not have lasted more than 30 seconds at the beginning of last February, “that’s when I found out about that situation, I was going in to play a game and he was leaving for another team. He tells me: you know what, this happened to me. Obviously, he tells me something about his situation. That is why I manifest this situation (to the court) and say that I know this person. That was the reason.”
He adds that “I understand that the president of the court commented to the Court in the same way and that that is the reason for my recusal. Basically it was to make this known to the parties and the parties can decide whether or not I have the necessary impartiality to take the case. It was necessary to say it, so that the rest would know that this is the degree of knowledge and no other, and they could say you know what, it seems to me or it doesn’t seem to me.
He adds that “what I want to be clear about is what I explained to the Judges Committee: I only know him in the sports field, we once played on the same team. Unfortunately, I cannot ask someone who plays amateur soccer what he does, what he does,” he stated.
When asked if behind his decision to present the grounds for recusal, there was fear of intervening in the trial given the type of criminal organization at stake, the judge denied this situation. “Not at all, because in the most complicated trials in Arica, I have intervened, both as a guarantee judge and as an oral judge. I intervened in the sentencing of Mayor Carlos Valcarce and also in the hearing to prepare the oral trial of Mayor Waldo Sankán and several councilors. There is then no type of fear in me. This does not escape much of what happens in this job,” he expressed.
Regarding why his challenge was resolved by the oral judges with whom he shares a court and was not raised for the knowledge of the Court of Appeals as indicated in article 204 of the Organic Code of Courts, Álvarez maintained that “I presented the accusation and that is what decided the Chamber. I haven’t even been there, because I have been on a legal holiday. I’m not even sure what was resolved. What they told me is that there were a couple of prosecutors and defenders who wanted me to disqualify myself from the case, but the resolution is given by the Chamber. “It’s not my place to see it.”
Regarding the decision adopted last Thursday by the Supreme Court to protect the personal data of the judges involved in this trial, the magistrate said that “that is relative, because that is so public. This has always been public. I found out that it was a petition and I don’t know when it started, but this data has been on public portals all the time. “I don’t know if it will be a measure that has great importance or not, but it seems reasonable, although everyone knows who the judges are and what their address is.”