Defense of former Commander Martinez accuses the Judiciary of violating the secrecy of summary in fraud case

Pending what will be the statement of the now former commander in chief of the Army, Ricardo Martínez as “accused” before the visiting minister, Romy Rutherford, a fact has been denounced by his defense lawyer. Specifically, Juan Carlos Manríquez announced that he filed a complaint with the national prosecutor, Jorge Abbott, due to leaks in the process.
According to El Desconcierto, Juan Carlos Manríquez, Martínez’s defense lawyer, accused that in the case “the secrecy of the summary has been violated from the Judicial Branch itself, according to the attached document.”
Manríquez maintains that the problem occurred through a WhatsApp conversation between the head of communications of the Judiciary and a group of journalists, where the resolution of the case was sent along with the warning that it could not be explicitly disseminated, but if it could be cited for journalistic purposes.
“Copies of the judicial decisions issued by the investigator of the case are accompanied in that WhatsApp to several journalists, with the express instruction of who would be a journalist of the same Judicial Power not to include in their notes the aforementioned resolutions, but to disseminate their content,” he said.
In conversation with Cooperativa, the defense lawyer commented that these leaks allowed third parties to learn about Rutherford’s decisions before them, so he filed a complaint with the national prosecutor.
“Yesterday I filed a complaint with the national prosecutor for leaks in the case, which was received, since third parties received these resolutions with the express instruction not to upload them and only comment on them, before we received them according to the chronology that we already denounced to the national prosecutor,” he said.
“That is already entered in the national Prosecutor’s Office last night. Why?, because these leaks produce an effect, which is, to further weaken the few possibilities of defense in that procedure that is 200 years old and generate an environment of pressure, on which, obviously, it seeks to play with contradictions and leave once again the inquired in a much weaker position. It is an undue advantage,” he added.
After the fact, Manríquez condemned the situation and called for an investigation into what happened, so that the culprits of the actions can be formalized.
“This is unacceptable and accounts for a way of operating that seeks only undue advantages. I ask that this fact be investigated and that the culprits of this type of actions so harmful to the health of Justice be formalized and accused. That is why the old criminal procedure system and especially the military criminal system must be improved as soon as possible and put an end to these real attacks on due process,” he concluded.

Original source in Spanish