El Universo Appealed and Requested an Annulment of Judge Paredes’ Sentence

Yesterday, the defense of El Universo Company appealed and asked for the nullity of the sentence (issued on Wednesday 20) before the Judge 15º of Criminal Fair, Juan Paredes.

The annulment, was delivered yesterday afternoon because the judge acted without jurisdiction, which is based on paragraph 1 of Article 330 of the Criminal Procedure Code. “The criminal jurisdiction of the court to judge people, includes the active subjects of offenses under the respective criminal laws of Ecuador. And active subjects of a criminal offense can only be natural persons, not legal persons”, lawyers Jorge Zavala Baquerizo, Xavier Zavala Egas and Diego Zavala Vela argued in a written statement.

Yesterday, Cesar Perez, deputy director of El Universo, told Ecuavisa that neither the newspaper nor its directors have the $ 42 million that the verdict requires from them to pay President Correa’s damages. “We haven’t seen that money, we indeed have to work in the newspaper for nearly 40 years without investing profits and without raising wages to deliver profits to the citizen Rafael Correa,” said Perez.

The request for annulment and appeal of the sentence of three years in prison for Emilio Palacio (former editor of Opinion), Carlos, Cesar, and Nicolas Perez (El Universo managers) and the payment of $ 30 million to the president, will run next Tuesday.

Source: El Universo Newspaper