Judge Kenya Romero will continue this Friday hearing the coercive measure hearing against the former ministers and other people involved in the corruption case called Squid.
It is expected that in the morning, the prosecutors of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office against Administrative Corruption (Pepca) will present the charges against four of the 20 defendants because last Wednesday, the day the process began, they read the magistrate the accusation of these.
After this, they must tell the judge of the Office of Permanent Attention of the National District what evidence they have against Donald Guerrero, former Minister of Finance; Gonzalo Castillo, former head of the Ministry of Public Works and past presidential candidate; José Ramón Peralta, former administrative minister of the Presidency, and the other defendants.
Later, the plaintiffs in civil actors will say if they adhere to the request of the Public Ministry or present another proposal.
The regulations that regulate this type of hearing specify that after this, the defenses of the accused present their arguments, in which they will seek to refute Pepca’s request that they impose 18 months of preventive detention on those involved.
In the end, if they so wish, the defendants can address the judge, who, at the end of the debates, will reiterate to consider whether to send the defendants to preventive detention as requested by Pepca.
Wednesday’s hearing lasted 10 hours and was held behind closed doors. Due to the number of defendants, today’s hearing is expected to be a marathon. Former ministers Guerrero, Castillo, Peralta, the other former officials, and others involved have been detained for almost two weeks in the preventive prison of the Ciudad Nueva Palace of Justice after being arrested during the Squid operation.
