It is up to two provincial judges to decide whether or not to accept the challenge raised by Jorge Yunda

Almost a month and a half after Jorge Yunda filed a complaint against one of the members of the Trial Court in the embezzlement case, which occurred in the acquisition of 100,000 evidence to detect COVID-19 by the Secretary of Health of the Municipality of Quito, the defense of the dismissed mayor of Quito will face a hearing in which he will learn whether or not the step is to separate the provincial judge Fabián Fabara from the case.

This Wednesday, December 1, the diligence will be in charge of the provincial judges of Pichincha Wilson Lema and Patlova Guerra. They are part of the Trial Court in the case For embezzlement and not having been challenged, they are the ones who have the responsibility to decide whether the claim filed by Yunda against Fabara is well founded or, on the contrary, it has to be rejected.

Challenge presented by Jorge Yunda in embezzlement case causes the trial process to suffer delays

Defense of Yunda presented his challenge against Fabián Fabara on October 21 last. It was known on the sixteenth day of the trial hearing against the former mayor and thirteen more people accused of embezzlement.

The former mayor’s lawyers challenged Fabián Fabara arguing not only his partiality within the diligence, but also that what the judge was supposedly looking for is to sentence in the case for the crime of influence peddling instead of embezzlement, a crime for which a tax instruction was opened in mid-February.

For Édgar Molina, part of Yunda’s defense, this is a challenge specifically against Fabara, because he was not only “anticipating criteria, interrogating, cross-examining, bordering on the experts and witnesses “to say what the judge wants to hear, but also by the intention that those prosecuted for embezzlement be sentenced for the crime of influence peddling.

Although Molina hopes that the remaining judges will accept the challenge, since the only thing they are looking for, he assures, is that an impartial judge direct the diligence and sentence for the crime that it is and not that crimes are invented at their own convenience or interests.

The lawyer criticized the justice operators whom they had asked for 25 days to hand over the audios of the hearing, in which according to the lawyer, Fabián Fabara “Prevaricates, interrogates, cross-examines and discredits witnesses”, and just this Tuesday, November 30, they will facilitate them.

“There are 125 hours of audio and they give us today (Tuesday) in the morning. This is our only test, our fundamental test. I don’t understand why they give us just 24 hours before the hearing, that it is totally impossible to hear “explained Molina, who announced that they will make this detail known to the “surviving” judges of the challenge in order to know what the answer they give.

Jorge Yunda recuses one of the judges of the Trial Court of the case for embezzlement and asks that he be separated from the case

The ways in which the challenge is to accept or deny it. If the first case occurs, the challenged judge will be replaced by another within the Court, while if the second case occurs, the magistrate will continue to know the cause and it will be taken up again from the day in which it was suspended. The decision will be in the hands of the two skilled judges: Lema, president of the Trial Court, and Guerra.

Once the judges’ resolution is given, Molina and his group of lawyers would analyze what is the next step to take. What is clear is that if the challenge against Fabara is accepted, they will have to leave the Court is also judges Lama and Guerra and that fact generates “anxiety” in that defense, since they maintain that both have been acting in strict law.

If the Court of Trial was left without members in this case, the trial stage would return to zero and, at least Molina, I would believe that the processing would take until 2022The appointment of a new Tribunal and the date for the diligence to be carried out would take time.

Jorge Yunda is tried for the crime of embezzlement, accused as a mediate perpetrator; the former Secretary of Health Lenín Mantilla and Juan Alejandro Vinelli, manager of Salumed S .A., accused as direct authors; and eleven more people accused as co-authors, among them, Ximena Abarca, former Secretary of Health, and Linda Guamán, former technical coordinator of the Ministry of Health. (I)