Martinelli defense continues stalling tactics

IN THEIR ongoing battle to delay the day of justice for ex-president Ricardo Martinell two new appeals, the latest in a long succession on unsuccessful amparos have been presented by his defense lawyers.

In the first instance the defense made a request for a hearing regarding human rights violations, because, according to its allegations, its client remains isolated in the El Renacer Prison, where he has been detained since June 11, 2018, after being extradited from the United States

The other remedy is an appeal for constitutional guarantees against a decision of the president of the trial court, Roberto Tejeira, to allow the opening of compact discs without the “proper chain of custody”.

Roniel Ortiz, Martinelli’s team of lawyers, said that the date for the hearing on human rights that they requested has not yet been set. In his opinion, the isolation in which the ex-ruler is maintained violates his constitutional guarantees.

Lawyer Carlos Carrillo filed before the First Superior Court of Justice the amparo, which attacks the decision taken by Tejeira on April 5, which allowed the opening of two DVD-type compact discs, which were recognized by the expert from the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences Luis Rivera Calle .

The amparo alleges that in the order to open the trial DVD should be introduced by the expert Gustavo Scott and that this is a violation of the fundamental rights of his client.

The appeal which was distributed on  Monday and was in the office of Judge Olga Rujanosays that Rivera Calle was not the person who made the extraction of the information contained in the DVD and that this situation should be corrected by the court.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor Aurelio Vásquez -who leads the team of the Public Ministry in the trial- explained that in yesterday’s hearing a new DVD was analyzed, containing the audio of a meeting of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), information that rested on a hard drive recovered in the National Security Council (CSN).

Vásquez said that said audio shows that the CSN carried out illegal activities of surveillance and monitoring of members of political parties.

He also specified that the DVD that is the object of analysis in the trial contains another 33 audios that must be reviewed and recognized by the expert Rivera Calle.