Odebrecht case experts testify in court
Ecuadornews:
The Vice President´s lawyer assures that none of them has mentioned the name of their client. César Montúfar, private accuser, says that the illicit association was proven.
About 30 people (including experts and witnesses) attended the National Court of Justice in three days to give their version at the trial hearing for the alleged crime of conspiracy within the Odebrecht case.
Until 1:00 pm yesterday, Tatiana Celi, member of the Financial and Economic Analysis Unit, was summoned, who detailed the expanded financial movements of the defendants José Rubén T. N .; Ramiro C., Édgar A. and of the companies Diacelec and Equitransa.
Then followed the policeman Antonio Toapanta, a member of the Laboratory of Criminalistics and Forensic Sciences, who detailed the procedures he took on June 2, during a raid on a home of Gustavo M., another of the defendants.
Fabián Silva, from the Forensic Computer Science and Forensics Laboratory, said that he had to analyze four USB devices that were located in the raid on the property.
One USB indicated that one had capacity of eight gigas and material pertinent to the case. Of the data that was collected, 30 attachments were found with 4,922 pages, 57 PDF files, and 31 folders, which are part of the evidence against Gustavo M.
This situation was rejected by Eduardo Franco, lawyer of the vice president, who assured that the Prosecutor’s Office “is coming down guard”. For the defense of the vice president the evidence presented by the experts lacks sustenance.
He gave the example of computer expert Mauricio Romero, who materialized the information that came from the United States. According to Franco, the technician said that his information does not include the name of the Vice President.
He added that the same thing happened with the expert who did the international criminal assistance document of Panama and the Forensic Computing, who did not mention Jorge G.
“The own witnesses and experts of the Office of the Prosecutor are ratifying the defense of Jorge G. because there is no evidence to incriminate him,” he said.
Aníbal Quinde, lawyer Ricardo R., uncle of the vice president says that the Prosecutor’s Office presented “countless experts who until now do not point to this illicit association”.
Quinde assured that in this lapse of time it has only been repeated the versions of José Conceição Santos, former Executive of Odebrecht in Ecuador. However, he reiterated that until now, his client’s relationship with the aforementioned companies is not proven.
On the contrary, the private accuser, César Montúfar, was confident in the process.
He pointed out that if the illicit association between 2010 and 2016 was demonstrated, between Odebrecht – through Ricardo R. – and Jorge G. Montúfar warned that at the end of the trial it will require the Office of the Prosecutor to provide documentation to support the crimes of bribery, embezzlement and laundering. assets. “We will ask that the evidence be returned to the Office of the Prosecutor so that new investigations can be initiated,” he said. (I)