Global Courant 2023-04-20 06:05:08
In the Cooptation of the State case, the more than 50 defendants urge for next May to go to the intermediate stage, in which it will be determined whether or not they will go to trial, but first they try to prevent the effective collaboration of three defendants who reached agreements in 2018 with the Special Prosecutor against Impunity (Feci).
Effective collaborators must formalize their figure and benefits by declaring in advance evidence before the Court of Higher Risk B, although in the last five years Ingrid Marisol Dávila Álvarez, María del Carmen Palencia Espinosa and Víctor Hugo Hernández have not been able to testify.
In the process there have been delays due to amparo, a saturated court schedule and changes of judge since Miguel Ángel Gálvez went into exile.
In 2018, effective collaboration was endorsed and in the third point of the agreements, the declaration before the judge is mandatory. If they do not do so and start the intermediate stage, the accused could lose the benefits that they agreed with the Feci of the Public Ministry.
“As a consequence of this agreement, the accused or collaborator is obliged to render testimonial information as advance evidence before the First Judge of the Highest Risk Criminal First Instance of group B of the department of Guatemala for the purpose of producing legal and legitimate evidence in against the participants and any other person who could be syndicated within the investigation”, determine the agreements.
The intermediate stage hearing was scheduled for next May 2, and the Feci in less than 11 days must justify and convince the judge of Higher Risk B, Eva Recinos, of the necessary of the statements so that they are heard and not risk the conventions.
Collaborators
Among the effective collaborators is Hernández, who was an accountant and representative of a conglomerate of companies coordinated by Juan Carlos Monzón, who was secretary of the former vice president, Roxana Baldetti.
This group of companies, through the investigation of the Feci, determined that they did not exist, and through them, in the 2011 campaign, contributions were received for the Patriotic Party (PP).
The investigation establishes that Hernández’s companies gave him false invoices and, on occasions, for intangible and difficult-to-trace services such as “use of machinery for a thousand hours”, a modality that is constantly repeated.
Some Q15 million Hernández would have received through the company he managed and that were part of the Monzón and Baldetti network.
Likewise, Palencia Espinoza has information of interest in the case for having been Hernández’s secretary.
The collaboration of Dávila Álvarez interests Feci because she was Monzón’s secretary in the companies he had, such as Canchas Deportivas, SA. She has told prosecutors how the operators of the extinct Patriot Party came to the company.
Baldetti
At the hearing this Wednesday, Baldetti announced that he did not have legal representation and the lawyer Gustavo Juárez confirmed his resignation to continue providing his advice.
Judge Recinos ordered Juárez to continue representing the former vice president until she finds a new lawyer.
