2024-07-28 15:01:27
On the sixth attempt, the National Court of Justice (CNJ) held the evaluative and preparatory hearing for the Judicial Independence case.
The Prosecutor’s Office will finally, after a series of deferrals, present its formal accusation in the Judicial Independence case. Judge Julio César Inga will have to decide how many of the 12 defendants will go to trial for obstruction of justice.
One of them is Wilman Terán, former president of the Judicial Council (CJ). He should be imprisoned in La Roca Prison in Guayaquil, but he is attending the hearing at the CNJ —in the north of Quito—, since he assumed his own defense.
This hearing represents a new chapter in the confrontation between the Prosecutor’s Office and Terán, which began when Terán was at the head of the Judiciary and tried to remove Diana Salazar from the Prosecutor’s Office.
Recently, this dispute flared up again after Terán showed chats in the National Assembly —in the middle of the impeachment proceedings against him— that he supposedly had with prosecutor Salazar, who wanted to “co-opt spaces in the Court.” However, Salazar will not be acting in this hearing. The official appointed Wilson Toainga, who is the acting Attorney General.
The alleged chats with prosecutor Salazar
In the first phase of the hearing, Inga gave way to the arguments of the defendants regarding possible defects that may have caused the nullification of the Judicial Independence case. The first to speak was Wilman Terán, representing himself. “I would have loved for prosecutor Diana Salazar to be there,” said Terán at the beginning of his presentation.
He added that he wanted to express to her – publicly – that if before the start of the legal proceedings that now confront them, he did something that could have caused her resentment, “it was not with the intention of causing her any harm.” He also said that he is sure that the Prosecutor will put passions aside and tell the whole truth and what is relevant, in this and other proceedings.
He added that he is sure that Salazar knows that neither he nor the other defendants have committed a crime. Regarding the requests for annulment, Terán said that, 12 days ago, he realized that in the first section of the file of this case, when the initial suspects were listed, his name was crossed off that list.
And he said again that, when the investigation into this case began in May 2023, he – due to the nature of his position in the Judiciary – was in constant communication with Salazar. And he read part of a chat, from May 11, 2023, in which they supposedly discussed the suspension of the then judge Walter Macías.
While the defendant continued reading, the deputy prosecutor, Wilson Toainga, asked the judge not to allow Terán to continue because those chats have nothing to do with the case, nor with this procedural part.
Inga called Terán’s attention and asked him to go to the point of the requests for annulment. Terán continued with his presentation about the messages, but Toainga interrupted again. The official said that these chats are part of a previous investigation and, therefore, are confidential.
The magistrate responded that he cannot certify the existence of this prior investigation, and the classification of this information as confidential. He then gave Terán the floor back, who asked the judge to guarantee his right to defense and to let him finish his argument. While the hearing was discussing the relevance of Terán’s statement, other alleged messages between Terán and Salazar continued to be projected on the screen in the courtroom.
— Wilman Terán: They say you’re coming against me? —
Diana Salazar: Obstruction of justice. The FY report is damning, according to what I’m told. I haven’t seen it. That’s it.
— Wilman Terán: So sanctioning a disciplinary act is obstruction of justice?
— Diana Salazar. Let the IP say it. I have not seen any evidence. I am returning from Mexico.
For Terán, the fact that Salazar was returning from Mexico and had knowledge of the case, just when the investigations began, constitutes a procedural violation, which would lead to nullity.
Continuing with his story, Terán recalled that on May 14 the Prosecutor’s Office ordered a search of the Courthouse, but that, according to the notification, the request was not against him, but rather his name was included in the case, when a time and date was requested for the formulation of charges.
For him, this detail is a violation of the principle of objectivity, since this connection had a political and personal motivation on the part of Salazar, who was concerned because the suspended judge was in charge of cases that were of interest to her. In addition, he assured that the case file has been mutilated by the Prosecutor’s Office, with regard to the chats in question, which would mean another flaw in declaring the nullity of everything done so far. Thus ended Terán’s intervention.
Other allegations
The second defendant to intervene, through his lawyer, was Andrés Jácome, who asked the Prosecutor’s Office for the possibility of reviewing the body of the file to which Terán referred. After doing so, he said that -in effect- the 105 pages to which the former official referred do not appear. Faced with this situation, Jácome’s lawyer also asked that the case be declared null and void, since the elements of conviction that the Prosecutor’s Office excluded from the file without prior notice cannot be discussed. This position was supported by the lawyer of Carlos Garavi, another of the defendants.
The defense attorney said that the prosecution file has been mutilated several times, since the Prosecutor’s Office has not included several requests for evidence requested by the parties. Garavi’s lawyer, for example, showed images of page 7,348 of the file, which contains a document from Wilman Terán, in which he requested the inclusion of several documents.
In that letter, the receipt from the Prosecutor’s Office is recorded, where it is noted that there were 105 pages of annexes, which were not included in the file. In addition, the defense attorney showed a letter from the Prosecutor’s Office, in which it reported the inclusion of Terán’s writing, but decided – unilaterally – not to include the annexes, but to send them to the Prosecutor’s Office of national jurisdiction, so that they can be included in another preliminary investigation.
Ruth Barreno’s defender asks for “procedural nullity”
In turn, Cristopher Gallegos, defense attorney for Maribel Barreno, a former member of the Judiciary who is also facing this criminal process, suggested to the judge that this case be “procedurally nullified” following Terán’s remarks.
The court considered that the Public Prosecutor’s Office had committed “procedural defects” by having “mutilated or disappeared” part of the file, and by excluding requests for information from public institutions on this case, considering them irrelevant, something that was up to the judge to decide. The court noted that, in this way, the Public Prosecutor’s Office had deprived the defendants of their right to defense.
“If you validate this, it will be your turn,” he warned the judge and called on him to “conduct a legal review” of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and to return the case to the moment when the anomalies were detected.
He also asked the magistrate to review the actions of former judge Masías, who he accused of having “gone out of the window” to support the position of the Prosecutor’s Office. “The status of victim has been given to someone who, evidently, does not have it.” After Gallegos’ intervention, the hearing was suspended.
Judge confirmed for this case
Before the hearing began, Inga asked the Secretary of the Criminal Chamber of the CNJ to certify whether there was a challenge against her. The Secretary indicated that the defendant Jéssica Chicaiza filed this request, but that it was not accepted for processing by Judge Iván Saquicela.
For this reason, Julio César Inga’s jurisdiction in the Judicial Independence case was ratified, so the magistrate declared the evaluative and preparatory hearing of the trial open. The Judicial Independence case This case points to the alleged irregularities committed in the Judicial Council during the administration of Wilman Terán, when he formed a majority with former members Ruth Barreno, Xavier Muñoz and Juan José Morillo.
The first two are also being prosecuted. In total, in this case for alleged obstruction of justice, in addition to Terán, Barreno and Muñoz, there are another 10 defendants, who will also be part of the evaluative and preparatory hearing for the trial.
Prosecuted for the Judicial Independence case
For the alleged crime of obstruction of justice
This case arose from another corruption scandal in the Ecuadorian justice system. In May 2023, the Prosecutor’s Office filed charges of influence peddling against Barreno and Morillo, for allegedly exerting pressure on judges of the Pichincha Court, who were handling a case related to Guadalupe Llori, former president of the National Assembly.
That case is called Vocales and it fell into the office of former judge Walter Macías. But, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, the Judiciary set up an operation to remove the former magistrate from this case. Initially, the Judiciary suspended Macías and, later, even dismissed him.
The argument was an administrative complaint filed by Esteban Celi, brother of former Comptroller Pablo Celi, both sentenced in the Las Torres case.
In the midst of the investigations, Xavier Muñoz and Alex Palacios, Terán’s former right-hand man, gave early testimonies and recounted the existence of a criminal structure to remove Macías.
All as part of a plan, which also included dismissing prosecutor Salazar and annulling the sentence of former president Rafael Correa so that he can return to the country. Thanks to this admission of guilt and collaboration, Muñoz submitted to an abbreviated procedure and received a reduced sentence of nine months in prison.
News in development.
By: PRIMICIAS