Paraguayan deputies request the resignation of the Minister of Justice for possible corruption

Paraguay’s Chamber of Deputies approved a statement urging Supreme Court Justice Antonio Fretes to resign over a possible corruption case.

“The Chamber of Deputies approved, with modifications, the draft declaration ‘Which urges the Minister of the Supreme Court of Justice, Antonio Fretes to present his resignation from office.’ At the proposal of Deputy Bachi Nuñez, Minister Carolina Llanes was also included,” published the official station of the legislative body on the social network Twitter.

In mid-November, the lawyer Amílcar Fretes, Antonio’s son, acknowledged in local media that he signed a contract to seek mechanisms to delay the extradition of the Brazilian businessman of Lebanese descent Kassem Mohamad Hijazi to the United States for drug trafficking.

He assured that he received a payment of 60,000 dollars that he ended up returning to the contracting party, according to the local news portal NPY, dated November 17.

According to this medium, Amílcar affirmed that at one point Sharif Hijazi, a relative of Mohamad, asked him to speak with his father Antonio Fretes to ask him not to authorize the extradition.

“Sharif personally asks me to speak with my father, so as not to extradite him [to Kassem Mohamad Hijazi]. They pressed me to speak with my father, but I did not agree,” Amílcar told local radio station Monumental.

He indicated that because of that request he decided to renounce the contract and that since then he has had no contact with the Hijazi family.

On November 29, it had been the plenary session of the Supreme Court of Justice itself that approved the request for the resignation of minister Antonio Fretes in an extraordinary session. In the declaration of the request, the plenary session of the Court justifies his request.

“We cannot continue in the position of waiting for the final solution of the case of the issues denounced [contract to stop the extradition of a drug trafficker to the US] at the risk of seriously affecting the image of the Judiciary that with so much work we are building together with the honest work of so many judges in our country”, he points out.

In mid-November, Minister Fretes denied being linked to a possible bribe to stop an extradition through a statement posted on the website of the Judiciary.

With information from Sputnik