The Prosecutor’s Office and the defense of Emilio Lozoya will discuss the reparation agreement and opportunity criteria to withdraw charges

( Spanish) — The Attorney General of Mexico, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Ministry of Finance (UIF) will discuss with the defense of Emilio Lozoya, former director of the state company, an agreement to repair the damage caused in the cases called Odebrecht and Agronitrogenados, according to information provided this Thursday by the Federal Judicial Council.

According to the information, during a hearing in the North Prison, where Lozoya has been detained since 2021, the defense said that they are “in the process of materializing a reparation agreement between the defendant and the co-defendants with the offended Pemex” and added that both ” the offended party and the Prosecutor’s Office did not express opposition”.

At the end of the hearing, Miguel Ontiveros, Lozoya’s lawyer, told the media that the offended parties agreed that a reparation agreement be reached and that the former official be given an opportunity criterion. The criterion of opportunity is a discretionary power that the Prosecutor’s Office has to extinguish the criminal action once a defendant makes reparations to the victim or party offended by a crime.

“As soon as we have it ready, we are going to return to sign it, and that Emilio Lozoya obtains his freedom and that the arrest warrants against his family are also canceled,” Ontiveros explained. In July 2019, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office issued an arrest warrant against Lozoya, his wife, a sister and his mother, for the case of alleged bribery from the Brazilian company Odebrecht.

Ontiveros announced that the agreement could be signed in about 10 days.

He added that Lozoya was willing to pay some US$10.7 million in damage repair.

tries to obtain more details of these negotiations with Lozoya’s defense, Pemex, the Prosecutor’s Office and the FIU.

Lozoya has been accused of having requested money from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht for the campaign that led Enrique Peña Nieto to the presidency of the country between 2012 and 2018, in exchange for favoring the company with contracts. In 2017, the then spokesman for Peña Nieto, Eduardo Sánchez, denied in the media that the presidential campaign had received resources from Odebrecht.

In 2016, Odebrecht reached an agreement with the United States Department of Justice in which it agreed to have paid approximately US$788 million in connection with 100 public works contracts in 12 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador , Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to pay fines and compensation of at least $3.5 billion to the US, Brazilian, and Swiss governments.

The former official has also been accused of allegedly ordering in 2013 that Pemex overpriced the Agronitrogen fertilizer plant while he was in charge of the oil company.

-With information from Omar Astorga