Challenge accepted against Jorge Yunda further lengthens the trial of 14 people accused of the crime of embezzlement

“We verify that indeed those clarifying questions at the beginning turn into true interrogations that carry some criteria implicitly”, “From the review, from the reading of these questions we can note that in many of these certain information is entered, in some cases a lot of information, several questions in one and in some cases some conclusions ”.

These arguments are part of the oral resolution with which criminal judges Wilson Lema and Patlova Guerra unanimously accepted, last Wednesday, the challenge presented by the ex-mayor Jorge Yunda and they separated Judge Fabián Fabara from the Court of Judgment that analyzes the crime of embezzlement occurred in the acquisition of 100,000 tests to detect COVID-19 by the Ministry of Health of the Municipality of Quito.

Jorge Yunda claims not to have committed embezzlement at the beginning of the trial hearing for the purchase of tests to detect coronavirus

With the appeal presented orally at the same hearing by Xavier Flores, Fabara’s defense, another Court of the Provincial Court of Pichincha must analyze the conclusions reached Motto and War that the power of clarification that Judge Fabara had in “a moment A certain one ended in an interrogation “in which several questions were asked and many of them” have content inserted, a criterion that the judge exposes and in which he introduces new information, both to the witnesses and the experts. “

Flores assures that before this new Court they will deliver the arguments to show that the decision taken by judges Guerra and Lema is wrong. He maintains that as long as the aforementioned appeal is not resolved, the main process remains on hold because it is not known whether or not his client will continue to know the cause.

Fabara’s defense at the same hearing last Wednesday requested that this sentence be expanded and clarified which he described as “dark”. What Flores needed to be asked about Flores is when his client entered information, what questions he asked, how they determined the introduction of facts if the entire audio of the hearing was not reproduced.

The lawyer also needed to know the pronouncement of Lema y Guerra regarding the obligation legal relevance of listening. What Flores needed to be specified is when his client introduced information, what questions he asked, how they determined the introduction of facts if the entire audio of the hearing was not reproduced, “said Flores.

Édgar Molina and Marcelo Icaza, lawyers for the dismissed mayor Yunda, insist that the only thing they were looking for with the challenge is to have a fair, impartial judge who is far from political issues. The resolution, to say of Icaza, confirms what they always said: “That the performance of judge Fabara it denoted that he anticipated a criterion and clearly did so through the introduction, conclusion or argument under the pretext of asking clarifying questions to the witnesses and experts ”.

Flores insists that everything that has happened in this case is part of a delaying measure of the former mayor, then, he maintains, it is not understood how, for Jorge Yunda’s defense, Judge Fabián Fabara is not an impartial judge from the first day of the trial hearing and they waited three weeks of diligence to just present the request for disqualification.

If it is confirmed on appeal that Fabara does not have jurisdiction in the embezzlement case and it must be another judge who replaces him in the case, a point in which there is no discussion is that the trial hearing returns to zero and all should be repeated. Instead, the topic that generates debate is whether the hearing should be with just one new judge or three new judges.

Icaza understands that the installation of this hearing should be with a new Trial Court, since Lema and Guerra are already contaminated by everything that has happened, with the testimonies of witnesses and experts who have already acted until the day the procedure was suspended. In 16 days of hearing, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Municipality of Quito participated as a private accusation and the defense of Yunda began its intervention.

In the case for embezzlement against Jorge Yunda, the Prosecutor’s Office concludes the presentation of 140 testimonial and documentary expert evidence

Until this recusal incident is resolved, the main process, that of embezzlement, will not be able to move forward.

In this embezzlement, the former mayor Yunda is investigated, as a mediate author; the former Secretary of Health Lenín Mantilla and Juan Alejandro Vinelli, manager of Salumed SA, accused as direct authors; and eleven more people named as co-authors, among them, Ximena Abarca, former Secretary of Health; o Linda Guamán, former technical coordinator of the Ministry of Health.

The Prosecutor’s Office investigates in this case the affectation of almost $ 2.2 million left to the Municipality of Quito, which in place of PCR-Polymerase tests, the Ministry of Health of the capital received tests RT LAMP diagnostic tool, whose virus detection capacity would be less than that required in the contract. Also the one that the Salumed company was chosen for this contract despite the fact that they had other proposals that offered to cover the requirements that the Municipality had and at a lower price. (I)