MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay: Topolansky says she will not recant

“I cannot recant, since I knew what I said,” Topolansky stressed

Former Uruguayan VicePresident and First Lady Lucía Topolansky Monday sent a letter to a group of relatives of people who disappeared during the military dictatorship saying she would not backtrack on saying that some witnesses had lied during the trials of those who committed these atrocities.

In her note to the organization Mothers and Relatives of Disappeared Detainees, she insisted that her statements were based on things she knew. The Judiciary turned down the Prosecution's request to summon her or her husband José Pepe Mujica over these remarks, which sparked a huge uproar.

However, Topolansky acknowledged having made a “mistake” in publicly discussing certain events in a recording made by writer Pablo Cohen for a book. She clarified that the nature of her statements applied to “trials in Buenos Aires, certain pressures and comments by victims.”

Topolansky's letter was in response to a communiqué from the organization urging her to either recant or remain silent. “I cannot recant, since I knew what I said,” she stressed while admitting that she had not reviewed the draft before publication, which - she argued - added to the confusion. “I take responsibility for the mistake and the consequences,” she also told the organization as if owning up to the controversy caused by her words.

She also made herself available to Mothers and Relatives should they need more information but made it clear that she would not be taking any further action on this matter. “I am not at this moment a public official and neither am I an elected senator. I do appear on the list,” she explained.

As a result, Mothers and Relatives wrote on X that they would maintain their energetic stance regarding Topolansky's statements: “We trust in Justice and in the Uruguayan people who have expressed their solidarity and constant support for this cause that unites us,” they posted.

Much to the organization's discontent, a Montevideo judge ruled Monday against a request from the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for Crimes against Humanity to summon Topolansky. In his filing, Prosecutor Ricardo Perciballe ratified his Office's belief that “the victims in this case ... have expressed the truth” and insisted there was “no conspiracy to harm anyone.”

Since the creation of the Prosecutor's Office for Crimes against Humanity in February 2018, there have been “38 indictments and formalizations and 28 convictions” as well as 73 shelvings due to lack of evidence.