There are 10 former officials from the Mauricio Funes government, those accused of laundering $2.6 million and benefiting from juicy bonuses and dividends. Four will remain in prison and five are fugitives, among them Salvador Sánchez Cerén —former Salvadoran president—. Flores Hidalgo received $ 174,000 in bonuses.
The Third Investigative Court of San Salvador has granted alternative measures to the arrest for the former vice-minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Hugo Alexander Flores Hidalgo, who is accused by the Prosecutor’s Office of money laundering of $174,000.
“The measure of provisional detention is removed and it is changed to other types of measures that are not deprivation of liberty, he will probably leave tomorrow,” — said private attorney Miguel Girón.
The court has left you the measures not to leave the country, not change your address and you must appear to sign every 15 days. The defendant’s defender confirmed that an abbreviated procedure agreement has already been reached with the Prosecutor’s Office, Flores Hidalgo will admit that he laundered money in exchange for a sentence reduction, but that will occur until the end of the investigation phase.
According to Girón, the court granted the measures because the circumstances in which the defendant is being processed have changed and it was no longer necessary for him to continue to be held in prison in the Mariona prison.
Flores Hidalgo is one of the 10 former officials of the Mauricio Funes government who benefited from the payment of bonuses in the 2009-2014 period.
On July 28, the Second Justice of the Peace of San Salvador sent to jail for the crimes of money laundering and illicit enrichment the former Minister of Health, Violeta Menjívar, and the former Vice Minister of Technology, Erlinda Handal Vega, imprisoned in Women’s prison, while in sector nine of Mariona the former Minister of Finance, Carlos Enrique Cáceres Chávez and the former Minister of Labor, Calixto Mejía Hernández are being held; Flores Hidalgo, will leave tomorrow with measurements.
In this process are absent or fugitives, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, in his capacity as former vice president of the Republic; Manuel Orlando Quinteros Aguilar, former Minister of Public Works; Lina Dolores Pohl, former Minister of the Environment; José Guillermo Belarmino López Suarez, former Minister of Agriculture and José Manuel Melgar, former Minister of Justice and Public Security.
This criminal case derives from the “Public Looting” case, when the Legislative Assembly approved the amount of US $80.8 million for 5 years, and which in the end ended up being $ 351 million dollars transferred from funds made by the Minister of Finance, without the due authorization of the Legislative Assembly.
