Uruguay government members resign over passport scandal probe By Reuters

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<p>(Reuters) – Uruguay’s interior minister and two other members of the government resigned on Saturday over a case that has already prompted the foreign minister to quit, involving a passport issued to an internationally wanted drug-trafficking suspect.</p>
<p>Interior Minister Luis Alberto Heber, a cabinet undersecretary and a chief adviser to President Luis Lacalle Pou will no longer be in the coalition government from Monday, the president announced on Saturday evening.</p>
<p>Uruguay’s presidency did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Heber’s resignation. </p>
<p>The investigation is examining how Sebastian Marset, the alleged drug trafficker, received a Uruguayan passport while detained in the United Arab Emirates over forged documents in late 2012. He was ultimately let go. </p>
<p>Marset is wanted in Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and the United States on drug charges.</p>
<p>Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo resigned on Wednesday after the publication of a November 2022 phone call in which he appeared to suggest that his undersecretary withhold evidence related to the passport investigation.</p>
<p>Bustillo on Friday denied any wrongdoing, saying he did not know who Marset was at the time the passport was issued. “That’s for the interior ministry,” he told a two-hour news conference, insisting the foreign ministry had acted correctly in issuing the document. </p>
<p>The president, who returned on Saturday from meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, said the passport should have been issued to Marset in accordance with Uruguay’s laws. </p>
<p>“Do we like that a drug trafficker has a passport? Of course not,” Lacalle Pou told a press conference in his first public comments about the scandal. “But that is the current law.”</p>
<p>He said he was convinced that officials including Heber, Bustillo and the undersecretary “have no legal responsibility” for the passport but could defend themselves in court if a case is opened. </p>
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