The Third Adjunct Liquidator Court of Criminal Cases of the First Judicial Circuit of Panama, acquitted eight people accused of the crime against life and personal integrity, in the modality of manslaughter, to the detriment of nine newborns, and declared the criminal action in against a deceased defendant.
This criminal case began with the complaint filed with the Auxiliary Prosecutor of the Republic, after the deaths of premature infants, between June and July 2013 in the main hospital of the Social Security Fund due to “acute intoxication” with alcohol. benzylic, the component of a medicine given to babies.
Benzyl alcohol was found in the metabolites of deceased infants, just hours after birth, as well as in other surviving babies.
Through the acquittal sentence No. 23-2022, of June 22, 2022, the precautionary measures imposed on the defendants as a result of this criminal case were also lifted and the provisional suspension of two other officials was lifted.
The third deputy liquidator judge of the first judicial circuit, Fernando Basurto García, when studying the file and listening to the parties, considered, in each case, that there is no link between the accused and the punishable act, since none of them had any involvement. directly with the treatment received by newborns.
The court concluded that the evidence presented by the Public Ministry with which it intended to demonstrate the criminal responsibility of the defendants was insufficient.
It was emphasized that the Public Ministry raised in its favor the arguments that were made against the defendants for allegedly having failed in their duty of care, even though heparin sodium was a drug duly approved by the Medicines Commission of the Social Security Fund. since 1969, without any warning being made about the content of benzyl alcohol in this medicine, which was updated on several occasions without any warning being made about its use.
On the other hand, the autopsy indicates that the nine neonates, whose birth weight did not reach 2.5 kilos, died from different causes, including intracerebellar hemorrhage, disseminated intravascular coagulation, prematurity, sepsis, bilateral pneumonia, lobar bronchopneumonia, subdural hematoma acute and acute respiratory failure, but that benzyl alcohol was found in all of them.
The hearing began on April 25 and involved eight private technical defenders and three plaintiff attorneys. The Public Ministry was represented by the circuit discharge prosecutor César Pereira.
The judge accepted the term dictated by law to issue his 47-page sentence.
