Although the trial for alleged embezzlement of PCR evidence was expected to last a month, it has not progressed yet. The challenge hearing will be on December 1.
The judgment for alleged embezzlement of evidence PCR – involving the former mayor of Quito, Jorge Yunda, and 13 others – started on September 29, 2021. Although it was expected to last a month, it was suspended on October 21, 2021, when the defense of Yunda filed a challenge complaint against one of the judges.
The former mayor challenged Judge Fabián Fabara, arguing that he was partial within the procedure and that he also sought to sentence him for a different cause (influence peddling) and not for embezzlement.
Édgar Molina, Yunda’s defense attorney, explained that Fabara was “anticipating criteria, interrogating, cross-examining, bordering on the experts and witnesses.”
Without giving a audience to deal with this legal recourse, the trial cannot continue. The challenge hearing is expected to be held on December 1, 2021.
Marco Ledesma, lawyer, says that with the background of how the trial was progressing – plus the delay due to the legal recourse of Yunda– the sentence could be known at the beginning of 2022.
What paths are left to the judge?
The challenge can be accepted or denied. In the first case, the judge would be replaced by another within the court.
But, if the second case occurs, the judge will continue and the trial will resume from the day it was suspended.
Details of the trial
The Prosecutor’s office is the prosecuting party in this trial. The entity maintains that there were irregularities in the $ 4.2 million contract between the Municipality of Quito and the company Salumed, during the management of Yunda.
In the pleadings from opening, the fiscal from Pichincha Alberto Santillán pointed to Yunda as the mediate perpetrator of the crime of embezzlement, arguing that on April 13, 2020, there was a loss of 2.2 million dollars for Quito, under knowledge of the Secretary from Health and Saludmed SA
Another accusation is that the tests were of technology Lamp and no PCR.
For her part, one of the accused, Linda Guamán, former advisor to the secretariat of Health, has detailed that the LAMP are tests PCR which takes less time to process.
However, an expert biologist who gave testimony at the trial explained that the Lamp test did not have a standard role on an international scale.
For its part, Dolores Miño, a defense lawyer from Guamán, has assured that the work of the Prosecutor’s Office has not been technical and that there is ignorance of the scientific area.
Accusations out of trial
Accusations come and go, and not just within the trial. In social networks and under the hashtag #CienciaEnJuicio, the scientist Linda Guamán It issues daily messages about what happens in each hearing and, like its defense attorneys, ensures that there are errors by the Prosecutor’s Office when it comes to the scientific area.
On October 1, 2021, for example, Guamán He explained that the accounting expert of the Public Prosecutor’s Office does not accredit experience in molecular biology, public contracting, or economics; but, “the scope of your report involves all the areas mentioned and from this comes the alleged damage to the State, which has not been proven, because it does not exist.”
Day 3⚖️ ???? #ScienceInJudgementDespite the fact that today the Prosecutor’s Office also dispensed with its witnesses (originally it had announced 118 and was left with 61), there are aspects of this day that I want to highlight as positive because they contribute to the ratification of my innocence and the rest of the accused ????
– ???????????????????? ????????????????to???? (@lindaguaman) October 2, 2021
Added to the media tension of the case was a publication in the scientific magazine ‘Science’, which described the trial as a “politically charged case” against Ecuadorian scientists, Linda Guamán and Ximena Abarca, former Secretary of Health.
Prosecutor’s Office is not far behind
But if Guamán has a label with which it talks about the trial, the Prosecutor’s Office is not far behind and under the hashtag #PruebasPCRQuito has reported on the details of the trial.
To the information attached photos and videos explaining the process.
#UPGRADE | Case #TestingPCRQuito: #ProsecutorEc showed inconsistencies in an expert opinion presented by defendant Jorge Y. at the trial hearing. His defense challenged one of the judges, delaying the process of the diligence. #The right moment #Prosecutor Against Crime pic.twitter.com/Une6UysCRY
– Ecuador Prosecutor’s Office (@FiscaliaEcuador) October 21, 2021
Remarks to the Prosecutor’s Office
On the 15th day of the trial, the defendants’ defenses challenged 70% of the documents presented by the Prosecutor’s Office, they were “a true copy of the simple copy.” Something that, according to the lawyer María del Mar Gallegos contradicts article 194 of the General Organic Code of Processes (Cogep).
The defense lawyers expressed their discontent on social networks where they criticized the fact that with a copy of the simple copy an attempt was made to create documentary evidence and that it is not only one, but several sheets.
