This is the delivery of a small plane that they received in exchange for favoring the Guatemalan Jaume Ramon Aparicio to favor it with the award of the construction of a bridge between La Llibertat and Chalatenango.
The former president of the International Center of Fairs and Conventions (CIFCO) José Miguel Menéndez, known as Mecafé, will face another initial hearing this Sunday for alleged acts of corruption arising from the irregular award for the construction of the San Isidro bridge between San Pablo Tacachico, the freedom and New Conception, Chalatenango.
The accusation was made yesterday by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the Tenth Peace Court of Sant Salvador. Along with the former fugitive president, Mauricio Funes i Mecafé, the Guatemalan Jaume Ramon Aparicio Mejía, legal representative of the Guatemalan company Serveis Qualificats de la Construcción, SA (SERDELCO SA), was accused.
Mecafé and Funes are accused of money laundering, but Aparicio Mejía of having bribed them with a plane to be awarded the construction of the bridge.
SEE ALSO: Prosecutor’s Office claims that Funes received a plane as a gift in exchange for handing over a millionaire contract to a Guatemalan businessman
Menéndez has been asked to be arrested, but in the case of Funes and Aparicio Mejía, the court will make international proceedings before the judicial authorities of Guatemala and Nicaragua so that the two defendants can be notified of the charges against him.
The court has scheduled for January 4 the hearing in which Funes and Aparicio would be informed of the charges against them.
Funes is in asylum in Nicaragua and Aparicio is imprisoned in Guatemala for acts of corruption similar to those he allegedly committed in El Salvador: bribing authorities with gifts or property to win construction contracts.
SEE ALSO: CEL delivers 1,600 folders of alleged evidence against Funes for corruption in El Garriga dam
Aparicio Mejía is reported by the Prosecutor’s Office to have bribed Funes and Menéndez to win the tender for the construction of the bridge at a cost of $ 8,487,716.94 and that it would be on the Lempa River in 2013.
“Then what he did was deliver a plane as a gift, it is given to Mr. Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena and Mr. José Miguel Menéndez Avelar,” said one of the prosecutors in the case.
He added that Aparicio delivered the aircraft in January 2013 to be sure it would win the tender that was conducted in March 2013.
But the tender was declared void by the evaluation committee because the Guatemalan company did not meet the technical conditions for the construction of the bridge.
“The work was awarded at a cost of $ 8,400,000, but the company did not even present the design of the bridge, which led to this process being declared expired and given for finished, “the prosecutor said.
Upon terminating the construction contract for the bridge for non-compliance with the execution of the work, the Guatemalan demanded the return of the aircraft, but Funes and Mecafé did not return it and were left with this property.
Moreover, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, they made family trips to different countries and sometimes even rented it at a rate of $ 1,300 per hour.
Menendez, the indictment says, made 47 flights to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica and the United States, as well as to different parts of the country. The trips were between June 27, 2013 and September 13, 2016.
While Funes made 16 trips to the United States, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama and within El Salvador. These flights were conducted between March 28, 2013 and October 31, 2014, that is, some outside his presidential term, according to the prosecution.