Ex-president Martinelli seeks to delay retrial

Ex-President Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) is now trying to reverse the ruling of November 20, 2020, that annulled the trial in which he was found not guilty in 2019. The move is considered a stalling tactic to avoid a retrial

His defense presented before the Court protection of guarantees against the ruling of the Superior Court of Appeals. Lawyers for the victims of the wiretaps believed that it was a delaying tactic to prevent the new trial on June 22.

Constitutional guarantee protection that seeks to reverse the decision of the Superior Court of Appeals of last November 20, 2020, that reversed the ruling of a trial court that declared Martinelli not guilty of alleged illegal wiretapping (‘punctures’) was presented before the Supreme Court..

The appeal, promoted by Carlos Carrillo, of Martinelli’s team of lawyers, on December 22, seeks to nullify the ruling endorsed by magistrates Donaji Arosemena and Yiles Pittí, which annulled the favorable ruling to Martinelli of August 2019 and ordered a second trial.

The Amparo, which is in the hands of Judge Maribel Cornejo, implies that the new trial of Martinelli, set for June 22, could not take place until the Court decides it.

The appeal argues that magistrates Arosemena and Pittí violated Martinelli’s fundamental guarantees by entering to resolve substantive situations of the process and that they included in their decision situations that, according to this thesis, were not raised in the appeal for annulment presented by prosecutor Ricaurte Gonzalez.

It also points out that in the annulment appeal the crimes for which Martinelli should have been convicted were never specified. In addition, he only referred to the fact that the evidence presented was not evaluated by the trial court.

Meanwhile, Carlos Herrera Morán, the lawyer for Balbina Herrera and Mauro Zúñiga, argued that the Amparo is a strategy so that the new trial of Martinelli is not held on the scheduled date.

Meanwhile, David Cuevas, Rosendo Rivera’s lawyer, said he did not know the content of the appeal, but also considered that it was a delaying strategy