May 24, 2023, 18:52 PM
May 24, 2023, 18:52 PM
The former mayor of the city of Cochabamba, José María Leyes, was sentenced to five years in prison, according to a report from the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) issued this Wednesday. The ex-authority must serve the sentence in the Cochabamba jail of San Sebastián.
The FGE press release indicates that the departmental prosecutor of Cochabamba, Nuria Gonzáles Romero, reported that in an oral trial hearing, the Public Ministry demonstrated with “strong” evidence that Marvel José María LJ 46 years old, is the author of the crimes of resolutions contrary to the Constitution and laws, breach of duties, contracts harmful to the State and uneconomic conduct, within the case called ‘food’, for this reason the Sentencing Court No. 10 of the capital handed down five years in prison that he must serve in the San Sebastián prison.
Also the disqualification of five years in the exercise of his functions as a lawyer was ordered and compensation for damages.
“It is striking that the entire hiring process was carried out in a single day, on April 16, 2020., without mentioning that the contracted company did not meet the minimum requirements to be eligible for this type of administrative process. Therefore, within the oral trial, all the evidence that was collected in the investigation was presented, including: municipal laws, decrees and regulations that demonstrate the guilt and authorship of the now sentenced person,” said Gonzáles.
For his part, the prosecutor of the matter, Marcelo Requiz, pointed out that the event occurred in April 2020, in Cochabamba, at that time. The mayor of that municipality, José María Leyes, issued a municipal decree in which he authorized, due to an emergency of goods and services, the purchase of food for the police and military, through a food distribution company.
Said hiring was observed by the councilors of the municipalitywho denounced that the award was made with various irregularities, the main one being that the company allegedly did not meet all the requirements of the public tender to provide services to a municipal entity.
Given these complaints, the former mayor and several of his officials were apprehended and charged in 2021.
Due to this and other processes, Leyes decided to leave the country and declare himself underground. The ex-authority faces more than ten trials, some of them for alleged corruption, during his administration in the Cochabamba Mayor’s Office.
