Yesterday, Friday, the Fourth Guarantee Court of Santiago accepted nullity motions filed by the defenses of defendants in the Imperio Ámsterdam case, and established that there were defects in the interception of the communications of Dispensario Nacional's lawyer, Hernán Bocaz.
Therefore, Judge Cecilia Villanueva granted the request to annul as evidence the wiretaps derived from that interception, as well as all proceedings arising from it.
To that end, a hearing was scheduled for next December 7, where it must be analyzed which pieces of evidence should be excluded.
In response to the ruling, Aysén regional prosecutor Hernán Libedinsky stated: "We respect the court's decision and are carefully analyzing its reasoning."
"The court did not annul the rulings that authorized the interceptions; it expressly rejected that request as excessive or overreaching. What the judge declared null were the proceedings derived from the interception of a single telephone line (Hernán Bocaz's), and it has not yet been determined which proceedings those are. Furthermore, the Court clearly established that the Prosecutor's Office did indeed disclose from the outset that it involved a lawyer, and that there was no omission whatsoever by the Public Ministry in that regard."
In addition, when asked by La Tercera about the background information reviewed to reach the decision, the prosecutor…
AI Brief
Your highlights
Yesterday, Friday, the Fourth Guarantee Court of Santiago granted nullity motions filed by the defense attorneys of defendants in the Imperio Ámsterdam case, and established that there were defects in the interception of the communications of Dispensario Nacional's lawyer, Hernán Bocaz. Therefore, Judge Cecilia Villanueva granted the request to annul as evidence the wiretaps derived from that interception, as well as all proceedings derived from it. To that end, a hearing was scheduled for December 7, where it must be analyzed which pieces of evidence should be excluded. In response to the ruling, Aysén regional prosecutor Hernán Libedinsky stated: "We respect the court's decision and are carefully analyzing its reasoning."
"The court did not annul the resolutions that authorized the interceptions; it expressly rejected that request as excessive or overreaching. What the magistrate declared was the nullity of the proceedings derived from the interception of a single telephone line (Hernán Bocaz's), and it has not yet been determined which proceedings those are. Furthermore, the Court made it clearly established that the Prosecutor's Office did indeed report from the outset that this was a lawyer, and that there was no omission whatsoever by the Public Ministry in that regard." Along with this, when asked by La Tercera about the background information that was reviewed in order to rule, the prosecutor clarified that "there are three things that are unquestionable: First, the court itself verified that the Public Ministry did not conceal any information, since this person's status as a lawyer was expressly reported to the judge who authorized the measure. What is being objected to is the way those resolutions were reasoned."
"Second, the court rejected the defense's request to annul those authorizations entirely. The decision was limited to what related to a single telephone, within an investigation that includes many other proceedings, such as interceptions of the defendants themselves, surveillance, and financial records. And finally, he added that "the concrete scope of this ruling has not yet been defined. It will be determined at an upcoming hearing, and there we will demonstrate that this investigation rests on its own independent sources, with which each and every one of our charges can be maintained."