Costa Rican Congress to decide ex-president’s fate!
San José, July 1 (EFE). –
Costa Rica’s Supreme Court referred a request to Congress on Tuesday to lift President Rodrigo Chaves’ immunity so he can be investigated for alleged extortion in the handling of funds from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI). On Tuesday, the justices analyzed the accusation presented by the Attorney General’s Office against the president in a private session.
After reviewing the indictment, 15 justices voted to transfer the case to Congress, while seven voted against it.
Chaves is accused of creating a tailor-made contract with the company RMC La Productora S.A., which was awarded a 405,000-dollar contract from the BCIE to provide communication, marketing, strategic consulting, message production, and opinion trend analysis services for the Presidency of the Republic of Costa Rica for the 2022-2026 term.
RMC La Productora, a communications company owned by Cristian Bulgarelli, who allegedly drafted the contracting requirements for the CABEI tender in 2022.
According to the Attorney General’s Office indictment, before the contracting process, officials maintained contact and held several meetings at the Presidential Palace, where they instructed Bulgarelli to draft the terms of reference.
The indictment also involves current Minister of Culture and Youth Jorge Rodríguez, then Chief of Staff to President Chaves, and Federico Cruz, an election campaign and personal advisor to the president.
The Prosecution also alleges that Bulgarelli was forced to grant an “undue financial benefit resulting from the contract with CABEI” to defendant Federico Cruz Saravanja, who “benefited from 32,000 dollars.”
Cruz is being prosecuted in a separate criminal case because he is not a public official.
The Attorney General’s Office explained that it offered Bulgarelli a plea bargain, but “If Bulgarelli’s cooperation is not in the best interest of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, criminal proceedings against him will resume.”
In June 2024, the BCIE reported that it had imposed a seven-year ban on Bulgarelli and his company for “fraud and collusion,” as “the supplier publicly admitted to having drawn up the terms of reference for the process in coordination with a former Ministry of Communication official of the Republic of Costa Rica.”
The case came to light in December 2023, when La Nación published a series of articles based on audio recordings provided by Patricia Navarro, the former Minister of Communication, who held that position for four months beginning in May 2022, at the start of President Chaves’ administration.
Navarro said she recorded the audio files to document “facts that could be against the law or ethics” and provided them to La Nación to “do the right thing.” According to the government, Navarro was responsible for the hiring.
The government filed criminal complaints against Navarro and the newspaper La Nación for disclosing the audio files, which the government considers illegal. EFE dmm/mcd
