Diego Fernandez de Cevallos
Diego Fernández de Cevallos Ramos (Mexico City, March 16, 1941), also known as "El Jefe Diego", is a Mexican lawyer and politician, member of the National Action Party, who He has served as a federal deputy, senator of the Republic and candidate for the Presidency of Mexico in 1994.
Early years
Diego Fernández de Cevallos Ramos was born on March 16, 1941 in Mexico City. He is the third of the fifteen children of José Fernández de Cevallos y Martínez, founding member of the National Action Party, and his wife Beatriz Ramos Íñigo. He studied primary school in the town where he lived with his parents in the state of Querétaro under the tutelage of a private teacher; secondary and high school at the Guadalajara Institute of Sciences. Graduated in Law from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1961-1964), he also studied economics at the Universidad Iberoamericana, an institution where he also worked as a professor of criminal and commercial law. Throughout his life he has stood out as a lawyer, the cases he has handled being controversial because he has been accused of using his political influence to obtain information and benefits as a lawyer.
He joined the National Action Party (PAN) in 1959, where he is considered one of the main characters due to his political influence. In the PAN he held positions in the National Executive Committee from 1969 to 1971, from 1975 to 1977 and from 1990 to 2005; He was also a candidate for federal deputy in the elections of 1970, 1976, 1985 and 1991, being elected in the last ones. In the 1988 elections, when the so-called Alternative Cabinet was formed by the PAN presidential candidate Manuel Clouthier, he was appointed Secretary of Internal Policy.
Federal representative
In 1991 he was elected multi-member federal deputy to the LV Legislature, being named coordinator of the PAN deputies, the nickname by which he is popularly known, Chief Diego<, dates from this time. /i>, as the deputies coordinated by him and the other groups called him; since 1988 but especially in this period he was one of the main negotiators of the PAN with the government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who allowed the PAN support for numerous legislative initiatives of the president, this cooperation of the PAN leadership - chaired by Luis H. Álvarez—, led to the departure from the PAN of a group of militants who did not approve of it and who received the name of the Doctrinary Forum, such as José González Torres, Jesús González Schmall, Pablo Emilio Madero, Jorge Eugenio Ortiz Gallegos and Bernardo Bátiz, among others.
Among the initiatives that as parliamentary leader of the PAN he supported in this period was the stenographic copy and subsequent destruction of the electoral ballots of the 1988 Elections, which had given victory to Salinas de Gortari and that the PRD and a sector of the PAN pointed out as fraudulent. The ballots had been in the possession of the Salinas de Gortari government for more than 3 years, so their content was not faithful to the electoral result.
Presidential candidate
At the end of 1993, he requested a license as a federal deputy to seek the presidential candidacy of the PAN. At the PAN electoral convention, he was elected as a candidate, defeating the pre-candidacies of Adalberto Rosas López and Javier Livas Cantú; In the constitutional electoral process he mainly faced the candidates of the PRI, Luis Donaldo Colosio and after his assassination, Ernesto Zedillo, as well as that of the PRD, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano.
Zedillo, Cárdenas and Fernández de Cevallos starred that year in the first television debate between presidential candidates in the electoral history of Mexico, during which according to various opinions Fernández won the victory according to popular perception and which could give a strong boost to your candidacy; However, in the following days his campaign seemed to lose strength according to what was published by the media who deliberately hid his activities to give this perception. In later years, this version was confirmed by Emilio Azcárraga Milmo himself, director of Televisa.
Finally in the elections he obtained second place, with a total of 9,146,841 votes, equivalent to 25.92% of the total votes, compared to 17,181,651 votes obtained by the winner Ernesto Zedillo.
After this process he stayed away from political activity although he was mentioned on several occasions as a possible candidate for Head of Government of the Federal District in 1997 and again for president of Mexico in 2000, accepting neither of the two and continuing with his professional career as a lawyer.
Senator
In 2000 he was elected multi-member Senator as number 1 on the PAN list, being during the six years of his term, until 2006, the coordinator of the PAN Senators; He served as President of the Senate in two periods, from 2001 to 2002 and from 2004 to 2005. During this period he was frequently accused of exercising influence peddling with various sectors to approve laws that could benefit certain sectors, mainly the media such as the television stations, as well as obtaining as a lawyer favorable rulings towards his clients and against government agencies. Given which, the PRD demanded that impeachment proceedings be exercised against him.
Despite the constant and varied accusations of his opponents, nothing was proven against Diego Fernández de Cevallos. This led to a complaint filed by Fernández de Cevallos himself before the Attorney General's Office, in 2021, where he demands that López Obrador publicly show the evidence that he claims to have against him and his illicit activities, being that the response of the Government of Mexico has been absolutely silent in the face of such a complaint.
Kidnapping
On May 14, 2010 at night he disappeared upon arriving at a ranch he owned in the municipality of Pedro Escobedo, in the state of Querétaro, according to the Attorney General's Office; being located abandoned that same night the vehicle in which he was traveling, and in which traces of blood were located, near the town of Quintanares, in the same municipality. The PGR and the Attorney General's Office of Querétaro confirmed his disappearance, also denying the versions that indicated that his lifeless body had been located, a version that was attributed to the former national leader of the PAN Manuel Espino Barrientos, who later denied it.
Given this, President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa condemned the incident, as well as ordered the investigation and search for Fernández de Cevallos; political figures from all parties joined this condemnation; and even the president of the Spanish Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, on the occasion of Felipe Calderón's visit to Spain.
On the night of May 15, it was confirmed that the traces of blood found in the abandoned vehicle belonged to Diego Fernández de Cevallos, and in addition to the trace of blood, some glasses belonging to him were found. On Monday, May 17, the Fernández family de Cevallos, through the former Attorney General of the Republic, Antonio Lozano Gracia, publicly called on the probable captors to contact them and negotiate their freedom. Finally, on May 19, several legislators asked that the case be brought to the Attorney General's Office. of the Republic. On the same day, May 19, the state committee of the PAN in Querétaro began a campaign to support Diego Fernández de Cevallos through spectacular advertisements, however, the next day the family asked them to withdraw them, which was done in immediately.
On Thursday, October 14, a statement was released from sources very close to his family where it was said that an amount of around 20 million dollars was paid for his release, which would supposedly be in the month of November of the same 2010.. Although this version was already denied by Fernández de Cevallos' own family, alluding to a distant relative eager for public attention.
From the afternoon of Thursday, May 20 and on Friday, May 21, an alleged photograph of Diego Fernández de Cevallos blindfolded began to circulate by email and social networks, without its authenticity having been confirmed or not.; On May 21, the Fernández de Cevallos family requested the authorities in a statement to stay out of the negotiations to achieve his release.
Since the end of May and throughout June there was no news about its status or location. At the beginning of July, almost two months after the disappearance, information emerged that the Fernández de Cevallos family and the alleged captors were negotiating the amount of money that should be paid for their release; Former attorney Antonio Lozano Gracia led the negotiations.
On September 13, another image was released showing Fernández de Cevallos holding a copy of the magazine Proceso that contained his image with Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
On Monday, December 20, 2010, the Attorney General's Office (PGR) confirmed that Diego Fernández de Cevallos was released after seven months and six days of kidnapping. His release was announced through the FOROtv news channel, and journalist Joaquín López Doriga declared via telephone that "he is in good health, although weak, but he is already at his house." i> & # 34;.
Controversies
Diego Fernández de Cevallos is the owner of several hectares in the tourist area known as Punta Diamante in Acapulco, Guerrero. These lands were expropriated by the governor of Guerrero José Francisco Ruiz Massieu (brother-in-law of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari) in 1992 with the objective of "promoting tourism in the entity", said properties were owned by small landowners and hundreds of ejidatarios. Some time later, the community members reported that they were forced to accept the expropriation under threats, so that the state government could sell that land.
The alleged irregularities in the granting of these lands to Fernández de Cevallos, then a senator, motivated 10 years after what happened, a group of opponents to request his removal, in 2002, so that he could answer for the accusations of illegal deed of land. the same.
In his last performance as senator, from 2000 to 2006, he was one of the main promoters of the controversial Televisa Law. He is a partner in a well-known law firm that won cases against collections improper taxes by the Tax Administration Service (SAT), which earned him criticism and accusations of influence peddling, given that he served as a senator during the litigation and that the federal government was of PAN extraction. In 2007, changes were made to the constitution and congressional law to prohibit legislators from litigating against the State. This proposal was known as “The Anti Diego Law.” It sought to prevent political figures with power from litigating in private offices, to prevent fight the corrupt association. Even his kidnappers would at some point speak of Cevallos as "influence peddler and rentier of the crisis."
In San Juan del Río, Querétaro, where some of his brothers reside, the latter are accused of having done real estate deals, appropriating intestate houses and land without owners in this municipality, as well as other extensions in the state of Querétaro. His connection with former President Carlos Salinas has always been frequent, especially after 1988, being identified as part of the Compact Group of Salinism. He was considered the strong candidate in 1993 against Ernesto Zedillo, but strangely his campaign lost strength, since then versions circulated that his candidacy was sold to the government.
Fernández de Cevallos and his office were the legal defenders of the company MetMex Peñoles, denounced in the case of 11,000 children poisoned due to the pollution caused by the foundry in Torreón, Coahuila. There were mobilizations by parents and criminal complaints by those affected, which were unsuccessful in court. At the time, the important political ties of the lawyer Fernández de Cevallos were also accused of the impunity of his client company.
During Salinism it was ironically commented in national political circles that Fernández de Cevallos was called The Squirrel; "because he spent his time in Los Pinos." At that stage was when people began to talk about the "PRIAN", due to the co-government proposal made by Salinas, in need of legitimacy, and whose most visible head on the of the PAN was Fernández de Cevallos.
During the political scandal known as the video scandals, in 2004, in which PRD leaders were observed being bribed by businessman Carlos Ahumada; Fernández de Cevallos was accused by Ahumada himself, along with former President Salinas, of being the intellectual authors of the media plot. Carlos Ahumada indicated that he was being accused of fraud for an amount of 31 million dollars and wanted to expand his businesses in the country, the then PAN senator offered him protection from the accusation and support him in his businesses in exchange for the broadcast on television. videos that involved PRD members receiving cash, according to his complaint, Fernández de Cevallos would have told him that he would have the support of the Secretary of the Interior Santiago Creel and the Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha.
In 2010, Fernández de Cevallos was identified by journalist Ana Lilia Pérez as part of the corruption network around PEMEX that would have benefited from multimillion-dollar contracts obtained through influence peddling.
Through an alleged interview, never denied by Fernández de Cevallos, an audio was circulated in which Fernández de Cevallos was heard stating that he would have to: “pay the price that has to be paid”, to “disappear” when President López Obrador, suggesting a possible murder or kidnapping, since, said the PAN politician; He “is fed up” with the “insolence” of the Mexican president.
In 2019 it became public that Fernández de Cevallos owes more than 900 million pesos in property taxes, surcharges and fines, for one of his properties in the state of Querétaro, since 1993.
Fernández de Cevallos later paid only 12 million of the 984 million pesos in debt, after the mayor of the municipality of Colón, of PAN extraction, discretionally condoned 98% of his debt.