May 3, 2023, 20:15 PM
May 3, 2023, 20:15 PM
Vinicius Castillo, Prosecutor for Controlled Substances, stated this Tuesday that they do not have certainty that the journalist Marcelino Rodríguez Tito, from Radio Omegas Noticias from the municipality of Yapacaní, who interviewed a man who reported a robbery committed by alleged police officers, be a press worker.
On this day, the Public Ministry issued a summons to the communicator so that Give your witness statement This Thursday, May 4, at 5:00 p.m., at the Controlled Substances Prosecutor’s Office.
“The Public Ministry is not certain or certified that this person (who interviewed the alleged victim) is a journalist, and if in the case that he was a journalist, the Public Ministry will respect the rights and guarantees constitutional”, Castillo stated.
The prosecutor’s statement is given despite the fact that a commission from the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) and the Prosecutor’s Office it reached the Union on February 10owner of the radio, to paste the notification paper where the communicator was located.
The prosecutor justified his request by pointing out that exist several citizens who record videos and make them go viral on social mediausurping the role of journalist.
Before the consultation of If Marcelino shows the respective documentation, the subpoena will be rendered null and voidVinicius said that yes they will under the Printing Law.
“If he presents the appropriate and pertinent documentation, the Public Ministry respects the rights and guarantees,” he said.
In an interview with EL DEBER, Raquel Guerrero, lawyer for journalist Rodríguez, announced that this Thursday they will appear at the Felcn Controlled Substances Prosecutor’s Office to present the respective documentation where he points out that his defendant works as a journalist.
The lawyer denounced an intimidation by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Police in the manner in which he notified Marcelino Rodríguez. He argued that the communicator is protected by the Printed Law in its article 8 and before the summons to declare, he cannot be a witness in a case where he was not present.
“The summons will be returned, the prosecutor and the police will be asked to prosecute in order to make the process transparent. We will also request a photocopy of the investigation notebook and the journalist’s identity card will be presented,” Guerrero said during the interview.
The lawyer questioned that the prosecutor Castillo has asked his client to present the documentation proving that he is a journalist, when he was notified in his same work source.
The journalist Marcelino Rodríguez responded to a complaint from a man who identified himself as a farmer. This He said that he and his companion were robbed by some alleged police officers when they went to negotiate the purchase of a van. near kilometer 6, area of the Yapacaní cemetery.
indicated that the supposed ‘sellers’ of the vehicle They got out of a vehicle with heavy-duty weapons, in a police uniform and they ran towards the motorized where he was. He said that when they saw the armed subjects, they backed off, but they got out of the vehicle and fled on foot.
The man told the journalist that they not only abandoned their vehicle, but also their cell phones. and the $10,500 that he had brought for the purchase of a truck.
For his part, the departmental commander of the Santa Cruz Police, Colonel Erick Holguín, reported that this person who identified himself as a rancher He is an alleged drug trafficker who was being persecuted in an operation that agents of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) had organized.
He stated that the uniformed officers supposedly they found 10 packages of drugs inside the abandoned mobility.
“This is a person who is on the run for trafficking in controlled substances, he was in a vehicle transporting drugs. In the Felcn operation, the man, noticing the police presence, fled. It was a operation of police officers identified with vests and Felcn emblems,” Holguín explained.
