PULSE NEWS MEXICO
After more than three years of her detainment without bail — and just hours after the arrest of former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam for his alleged ordering of the disappearances of 43 Ayotzinapa education school students in 2014 — Mexico’s Federal Attorney General Office¿ (FGR) late Friday, Aug. 19, ordered the immediate release of former Secretary of Social Development (Sedesol) and former Secretary of Agrarian and Urban Territorial Development (Sedatu) Rosario Robles Berlanga.
Late Friday night, Federal Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said that Robles Berlanga, who served under former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, could finally leave the Santa Martha Acatitla Prison, after being subject to preventive detention for three years on charges of her alleged involvement in the so-called Master Fraud, a scam in which, according to the nation’s Federal Finance Auditor, 4.6 billion pesos were misappropriated.
Gertz Manero, in a surprise reversal of his previous persecution of Robles Berlanga, who he had publicly declared guilty on numerous occasions despite the fact that she has yet to face trial, let alone any sentencing, stated that Robles Berlanga must be released because, under Mexican law, the crime for which she is being held, the improper exercise of service public, does not warrant preventive detention.
The attorney general said that due to health issues affecting Robles Berlanga and her advanced age of 66 years, he had decided that she should continue to await trial under house arrest.
“I want to thank so many people who never forgot me, who wrote to me, who sent me messages, who sent me food, who believed in me without knowing me,” said Robles Berlanga, who has maintained a public media campaign since her arrest in 2019, on her release.
“I’m not going to let these people down because I am innocent and that will be proven in court.”
Notwithstanding, there is another outstanding arrest warrant against Robles Berlanga for alleged crimes of ties with organized crime and the laundering of 77 million pesos.