The hearing scheduled this Monday for Ronny Rodríguez and William Pittí, accused in the Pinchazos Case, was suspended and postponed to next Friday, April 24 at 9 am.
“No one has come from the State to raise the alleged embezzlement, to support the alleged embezzlement. The complainant did not come today,” declared defense attorney Alejandro Pérez at the end of the hearing.
Pérez confirmed that Rodríguez and Pittí participated in the hearing remotely, since they are currently detained by the National Police. “They are detained in the National Police because they are members of the National Police,” said Pérez, who has also been a lawyer for former president Ricardo Martinelli.
For his part, anti-corruption prosecutor Javier Cuadra Herrera was confident that he had the necessary elements to achieve a conviction.
“It is the intention of the Public Ministry to be able to support the theory of the case and request the respective sentences within the process, with the elements that are already in the file,” said the prosecutor.
He explained that the economic damage is estimated at more than 10 million dollars and that the minimum sentence would be 5 years if found guilty. “We are already in the ordinary hearing stage, which is the one that determines the criminal responsibility of the people involved,” he explained. He added that the technological equipment used by the National Security Council has not been recovered, in this case the infamous “tapping machines” that would have been used to intercept communications from politicians, judges, businessmen and opponents of the then president of the Republic, Ricardo Martinelli, during his government.
Monday’s hearing is related to a process for alleged crimes against the public administration in the form of embezzlement. In addition, a second trial is pending for the alleged crime against the inviolability of secrecy and the right to privacy for which a hearing is scheduled for April 29.
Rodríguez and Pittí, who were part of the National Security Council, were fugitives from justice since 2015. On March 26 of this year they surrendered to justice.
For these same events, former President Martinelli was extradited from the United States and tried in Panama, where he was finally acquitted of the charges.
