The intermediate stage hearing and review of coercive measures for journalist Jose Rubén Zamora, president of elPeriódico, was suspended on February 21, due to a non-appearance of the prosecutor of the Public Ministry (MP) who is handling the case, and was moved for next March 20.
This day, in the Tenth Pluripersonal Court of First Instance Criminal, Narcoactivity and Crimes against the Environment, Judge Jimi Rodolfo Bremer Ramírez was going to carry out the aforementioned hearing for the crime of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Zamora went to court to find out if he will face trial or if the judge closes the criminal proceedings against him.
After several minutes of waiting, the court assistant indicated that due to the non-appearance of prosecutor Leonor Morales, of the MP, the intermediate stage hearing and review of the coercive measure was rescheduled for March 20.
Third rescheduling
This is the third time that Jose Rubén Zamora’s hearing has been rescheduled.
The most recent suspension occurred on February 5 when Judge Jimi Bremer indicated that he had to attend to a summons from the judicial career.
Zamora’s defense was going to present a request at this Wednesday’s hearing to grant him house arrest.
Zamora would remain in jail anyway, because he also faces another trial for the crime of alleged money laundering, a case for which he already received a six-year prison sentence, but a court annulled the sentence against the journalist and ordered a repeat of the case. criminal process and there is no date for that process.
Journalist Zamora indicated that the fiscal agent could have sent a substitute and continued with the hearing.
“According to the law, if the main prosecutor does not come, another prosecutor may come. It is a team that knows in each case. “I am calm,” said the journalist.
He added that from the beginning of the criminal prosecution against him everything has been malicious and sinister.
He recalled that he was captured on July 29, 2022, despite the fact that he had been presenting himself for seven months before when the first case was opened.
He pointed out that he held unilateral hearings and was not notified and the MP, alone with the judge, requested arrest warrants and arrest warrants, which failed on six occasions.
“I was presenting with my lawyers every week to the MP during those seven months to see what they were offered. They always told me that there was nothing, until they deviously came to my house,” the journalist recalled.
He said he is optimistic and that things in prison have improved and said that on Tuesday night I heard music for the first time in a year and nine months.
He explained that each day he had 23 hours of confinement and one hour of sunshine, but now he has the door open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., although he only opens a couple of hours.
He acknowledged that since the new government took power, things have changed and that even though he does not know any person or minister, they offered him to go to a VIP prison, where Otto Pérez Molina was.
“I told them that I preferred to stay in the bartolina, that my only plea is that they make it more dignified and more humane and that is what they have been doing, I have a heater, I have a way to heat the food and I have music,” Zamora commented.
He acknowledged that the prison guards treat him well and that they live a much more difficult reality than the inmates themselves.
The capture
Jose Rubén Zamora, founder of the missing elPeriódico, was captured on July 29, 2022. Five days earlier he had launched strong accusations of corruption against the closest circle of then-president Alejandro Giammattei.
As a result of his imprisonment, The newspaper, the morning newspaper he owned that published more than 300 corruption reports since 1996, was forced to close on May 15.
The MP’s excuse
Rafael Curruchiche, head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption (Feci), attended outside the court where the Zamora hearing would take place. The prosecutor indicated that they requested the rescheduling of the hearing because the fiscal agent, Morales Lazo, in charge of the investigation, is in poor health.
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