Montevideo, November 2 (EFE). – The government of Uruguay appointed Diego Escuder as interim foreign minister this Thursday following the resignation of Francisco Bustillo following the broadcast of old audio recordings of a call related to the case of suspected drug trafficker Sebastián. Marset.
Official sources confirmed to EFE that the vice president of this country and current acting president – in the absence of Luis Lacalle Pou due to a trip to the United States – appointed Beatriz Argimón Escuder and confirmed Nicolas Albertoni as deputy minister of this department.
According to the local press, Escuder worked as director general of the Foreign Ministry Secretariat and has a graduate and master’s degree in international relations.
At the same time, he works at the University of the Republic as coordinator of the Bachelor’s degree program in International Relations and the Master’s degree program in International Law.
This Wednesday, Uruguay’s now former foreign minister, Francisco Bustillo, resigned from his post, hours after old audio recordings of a phone call he had with former vice-chancellor Carolina Ache were released.
The local weekly Busqueda published a note noting that the government “tried to hide from the judiciary the messages that Ache and Deputy Interior Minister Guillermo Maciel exchanged some time ago about the Sebastián Marset case.”
He also released audio recordings of telephone conversations between Bustillo and Ache in which the minister “represented that he had lost his phone.”
In August 2022, Ache denied “any involvement” in the process of issuing and handing over a passport in the United Arab Emirates to Marset, who is a fugitive from the judicial systems of Bolivia and Paraguay.
A few days later, during an appearance before the Senate, Bustillo and Interior Minister Luis Alberto Heber defended that the delivery of the said document was an “administrative procedure” and not a political one.
In December of the same year, Ache submitted his resignation as Vice-Chancellor of Uruguay. EFE
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