Update in the Santa Marta case

It’s been almost two months since the community organizers from ADES and Santa Marta (Cabañas) were arrested. The Attorney General has requested that the access to all the information regarding this case is restricted.

 

DIARIO CO-LATINO reports:

The defense of the organizers asked the Criminal Chamber of Cojutepeque to reverse the disputed decision of the Sensuntepeque First Instance Court that denied the request to grant alternative measures to provisional detention and ratified preventive detention despite the delicate health of the detainees suffering from chronic illnesses, the non-existence of flight risk and even when in other legal proceedings related to crimes of the armed conflict the defendants are prosecuted in liberty.

In response, the Attorney General Office attacked the Chamber and asked the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice to challenge Judge Martín Rogel Zepeda, a judge with a recognized track record of independence and impartiality. According to a newspaper, the Prosecutor’s Office “suspects” that Judge Rogel is a relative of former FMLN deputy Ileana Rogel and, therefore, could be biased in favor of the detainees since they belonged to the former FMLN guerrilla.

 

According to the report, Judge Rogel responded by denying having any relationship with the former deputy. However, even if the relationship “suspected” by the Prosecutor’s Office existed, it is irresponsible to affirm that just because of this the judge will rule in favor of the “former guerrillas”. It is even more painful that an institution with all the powers, capacity and resources to investigate presents a request based on “suspicions”, without proving with evidence and arguments such statements.

 

Representantes de Santa Marta y ADES cuestionan actuación de la Fiscalía y califican como "maniobra sucia" el intento de apartar a uno de los magistrados de la Cámara de Segunda Instancia de Cojutepeque pic.twitter.com/r5Is0GFbiG

— ADES Santa Marta (@ades_sm) March 2, 2023

 

What is behind the prosecution action is, as the representatives of Santa Marta and ADES rightly say, the confirmation of the legal weakness of the criminal accusation against the environmentalists. In other words, in the absence of real evidence of the existence of the crimes charged and the participation of the detainees, the Prosecutor’s Office opts to attack the Chamber seeking to remove a magistrate who would act in accordance with the law after reviewing the appeal.

 

In reality, it is the Prosecutor’s Office that seeks to bias the resolution of the Chamber, not Judge Rogel; bias it in favor of a prosecutor’s accusation without real evidence and against environmental defenders who are unjustly and unnecessarily imprisoned. The Prosecutor’s Office seeks at all costs for this arbitrary judicial process to continue and for the detainees to remain imprisoned: it is the force of the State against these community leaders who have done so much good to the country by caring for water, the environment and life, especially in the face of the threatening metal mining.

 

The representatives of Santa Marta, ADES and the organizations that support them also denounce precarious conditions in prison and violations of the defenders’ rights, pointing out especially difficulties in providing food, medicine and sleeping mats. Therefore, they make an urgent appeal to the Office of the Ombudsman for the Defense of Human Rights and the International Red Cross.

 

Finally, returning to the action of the Prosecutor’s Office, God willing that the Criminal Chamber reflect on the disastrous precedent that accepting a petition based on “suspicions” would cause and allow the Court of Second Instance of Cojutepeque to resolve the appeal presented by the defense of community leaders attached to the law and to the human rights of these people who are victims of manipulation and instrumentalization of justice that -with the pretext of investigating a crime from the civil war- seeks to weaken the anti-mining resistance.

 

 

Puede escuchar las opiniones de representantes de ADES sobre el caso siguiendo este enlace.