!5 walk free after four-months drug, trial

 FIFTEEN defendants accused of international drug trafficking, money laundering, illicit association to commit crimes, possession of firearms and corruption of officials walked free on Wednesday, October 2 after a trial lasting four months. .

Judges  Katia Rodríguez, Aldo Johnson and Maribel Osorio, declared them not guilty in the case labeled El Gallero.

The court ordered the immediate release of the detainees, including Manuel Domínguez Walker, considered the alleged leader of the network. 

The magistrates did not value the 99 audios that the drug prosecutor’s office, in charge of prosecutor Markel Mora, had presented as evidence. According to the ruling, the telephone interceptions were not authorized at the time by a guarantee judge.  The judges said that the illegality of the actions of the accused was not proven.

In the case of the former mayor of Los Santos and now a deputy of the Central American Parliament, (Parlacen)  Eudocio Pany Pérez, a high profile  PRD leader, the Court said that the prosecution failed to verify that he had received money product of the alleged illegal activities from Dominguez Walker,

It also ruled that many of the events in which the 15 investigated were imputed had been processed at in other jurisdictions, such as the case of the seizure of 886 kilos of packages with drugs in Los Santos, in 2016. 

Eudocio Pérez said that at no time was he afraid of the result of the process. “The trial court was very educational when making decisions,” he said