MOSCOW: Uruguayan Interior Minister Luis Alberto Heber, Deputy Minister Guillermo Maciel and the presidential adviser on communications and strategy, Roberto Lafluf, have resigned amid a scandal over a passport issuance to an internationally wanted drug-trafficking suspect, Sputnik quoted the La Diaria newspaper report on Sunday.
President Luis Lacalle Pou told a conference on Saturday that he had accepted the officials’ resignation, the Uruguayan news outlet said.
The report said that Nicolas Martinelli, the director-general of the interior ministry’s secretariat, would take the office of the Uruguayan interior minister, while Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining Omar Paganini would assume the post of the country’s foreign minister.
On Thursday, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo resigned after leaked phone calls alleged that he tried to obstruct an investigation into convicted drug-trafficker Sebastian Marset’s passport issuance that reportedly caused a political crisis for the president. Marset reportedly received a new passport in 2021 via the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry in a day while he was in custody in the United Arab Emirates.-Bernama-Sputnik
