Lack of notification, restrictions on access to the investigation notebook, denial of digital citizenship and inaction of the judge in the case are the four alleged irregularities described by the lawyers of Milton Fuentes Apaza, Juan Quispe Guzmán, Manfred Flores Canaza and Mauricio Quintanilla Rojas, accused of being the authors of the attack on the Potosí university and in which four university students died.
“As a defense we have all stumbled, with 10 minutes to go we just learned of the formal accusation, we hardly agreed to read the formal imputation; then, in the same hearing, all the evidence against the detainees was presented and we knew nothing; we were not enabled for digital citizenship; we never knew the research notebook, I mean, as a defense we are totally limited and restricted”, lamented, Arturo Choque Coronel, defense attorney for Manfred Flores Canaza.
On Monday there was an attack with a gas grenade launched in the middle of the student assembly of the Tomas Frías de Potosí university, the stampede of students caused four university students to lose their lives. The authorities apprehended four people whom they accuse of being responsible for that tragedy.
José Luis Dávalos, lawyer for Juan Quispe Guzmán, had also denounced irregularities in the process and described the same difficulties in accessing the proceedings and developing a defense strategy.
His colleague said that although there is no judicial provision on a presumed reservation of the case, the Prosecutor’s Office acts as if there were because 24 hours after the precautionary hearing, they do not have access to the process and they did not enable the codes to virtually access all the investigation notebooks.
He also said that when this type of case occurs, like the one that happened at the University of Potosí, “compliance with the law is relegated without problems and prosecutors act in the heat of social pressure”.
According to the lawyers, they expect until Monday the appeal hearing is held that they raised in Wednesday’s session. In that hearing they will expose all the “irregularities that the accused must go through because they do not have the right to an impartial process.”