Chilean gov't pledges to cooperate in probe of president's son

Chile's government on Friday pledged to cooperate in the investigation into President Michelle Bachelet's son over alleged influence peddling and illicit enrichment.

"Whatever the prosecutor's office wants, the government is going to do. We can't have doubts about our conduct," Deputy Interior Minister Mahmud Aluey said.

Bachelet's son, Sebastian Davalos, and his wife, Natalia Compagnon, are under investigation for allegedly securing a 13-million-U.S.-dollar loan just days before she was reelected president, as polls showed she would be. The couple had no assets to justify the sizable loan, only their ties to the future president.

Davalos and Compagnon used the money to purchase land they then resold to a real estate developer at a 6-million-dollar profit, suggesting they were privy to privileged information and used it to their benefit.

Davalos, who held an official post as the presidency's director of charitable works, tried to ride out the scandal, but was finally forced to resign after both conservative opposition groups and members of the ruling left-of-center coalition criticized his behavior.

"We are going to support the prosecutor's office as we always have," added Aluey.

Chile's conservative opposition, meanwhile, is also embroiled in scandal, following revelations of illicit funding from a financial group.

On Saturday, two high-profile bankers and Pablo Wagner, the former deputy minister of mining in the previous conservative administration, were imprisoned. Endi