The appeal hearing for the nine-year sentence for the kidnapping of the political activist, Fernando Balda, was installed yesterday.
Social media posts began Monday morning. Members of Correísmo used the hashtag #PabloRomeroInocente on Twitter and shared messages against the sentence that convicted him, in the first instance, to nine years in prison. Videos, photos, texts were used in the tweets to delegitimize everything that took place in the legal process for the kidnapping against the politician Fernando Balda.
Assemblymen of the Citizen revolution (Correísmo) sent 232 messages on Monday night and Tuesday morning. Trolls retweeted and commented on the content. There, for example, a text uploaded by the assembly member was observed. Fausto Jarrin, lawyer for former President Rafael Correa, on possible threats to Romero to testify against the former president.
“Santiago Cuesta, another darling of Moreno and his government, threatened Pablo Romero with these words: accusations are going to rain down, each one is at least 4 or 6 years old. The Balda case of fraud and his sentence is void ”. He accompanied his tweet with a video, with an edited interview in which Cuesta appears.
Assemblymen make bars for Romero
Similar messages were shared by the correista assembly members Pamela Aguirre, Luisa González, Ricardo Ulcuango and Patricia Nuñez. The line was the same: that Pablo Romero was convicted with irregularities. An account called PabloRomeroInocente was also activated that shared content about the case and alleged evidence that the judges did not take into account.
It is not the first time that members of the legislature have been involved in this case. Legislator Sofía Espín was removed from office in 2018, due to incompatibility of functions when visiting the former intelligence agent, Jéssica Falcón, involved in the kidnapping in jail. The Plenary at that time took into account the report of the Multiparty Commission, which closed the investigation and recommended his dismissal.
Romero insists on his innocence
The sentence appeal hearing Due to the kidnapping of Balda, he settled in yesterday, January 4, 2022. Juan Carlos Perea, Romero Quezada’s lawyer, former National Intelligence Secretary (Senain), insisted on the innocence of his client.
The victim, Balda, spoke with LA HORA and pointed out that these resources are “desperate attempts”To prevent the sentence from being ratified. The final objective, he assured, is for the Prosecutor’s Office to have more elements that point to Rafael Correa, whom Balda directly relates to the plagiarism he suffered in Bogotá 10 years ago.
During the hearing, Perea pointed out that the events that occurred in Colombia already prescribed because the charges against Romero were brought in 2018 (see timeline). “If the events occurred in 2012, charges had to be filed in 2017. This did not happen and the case is prescribed.”
One word could change the sentence
On the other hand, at the discretion of the lawyer, the court that issued the sentence in the first instance confused the term “Mistreatment” with “mistreatment”. And he denied that there had been torture against Balda. “These deals did not exist in the Colombian events.”
The importance of defining whether there was mistreatment lies in the time of the sentence. If it is proven that there was no torture, the court can change its decision and lower the sentence of nine years for aggravated kidnapping.
Balda confirmed that he was tortured and that during the process ppolice arts that establish bruises, bruises and that there is even a document in which the presence is indicated, in the vehicle that was used for his abduction, of a cloth with chloroform to sleep and sequester. In addition, he indicated that “this argument of Romero’s defense” lacks logic because the rest of the participants in the kidnapping have already testified and pleaded guilty.
For Balda, it is also suspicious that Romero’s Defense has not presented as evidence for his appeal a testimony of the former intelligence agent, Raúl Chicaiza. In 2020, the then lawyer for the former intelligence chief, Stalyn Oviedo, said that Chicaiza would have made it known from Argentina “Relevant facts that determine a coercion against him in the case”. That fact, in his opinion, would invalidate the anticipated testimony, which was used to convict Romero.
Romero will continue in jail
Pablo Romero, former director of Intelligence of Correísmo, He already had a first legal defeat, yesterday. Before the appeal hearing is set up, a tribunal of the National Court of Justice (CNJ) chaired by Judge Mercedes Caicedo, did not accept the request for the expiration of preventive detention.
The judge indicated in her ruling that, from the arrest until the sentence was handed down, they passed 194 days, for which the law established was not complied with; that is, that Romero has been in detention for more than a year. For this reason, he will continue to be held in the jail of The Inca, in Quito.
