Four days before   a court hearing the appeal of Ana Matilde Gomez, the Office of Administration denied five of  eight requests by the suspended Attorney General says La Prensa.
On Friday May 28, the secretary general of the Office of Administration, Nelson Rojas, acting as attorney in charge, did not allow the application to take testimony from judges José Abel Almengor j, Elvia Batista and Luis Mario Carrasco. .
He also refused to call Rigoberto Gonzalez, a former general secretary of the Public Ministry (MP).
Batista's and Carrasco’s testimony was asked for by the defense, since both validated the wiretapping in a covert operation when prosecutor Archimedes Saez was a prosecutor in La Chorrera, in 2005.
Thanks to this operation, Saez was caught receiving money (allegedly a bribe). He Is free on bail , charged with of extortion His trial is scheduled for Tuesday June 8 in San Miguelito.
Almengor, requested a statement frin Almengor that when he was a prosecutor of Drugs, he resorted to wiretapping as a tool to prosecute drug crimes.
Almengor's testimony was of particular interest to the defense of Gomez, as the current judge wrote a book in 2007, when he was a prosecutor which recognizes that the constitutional reforms of 2004, created a "legal vacuum" .
In the book entitled The technique of wiretapping investigation, Almengor said the reforms of 2004 determined that wiretapping must be supported by a "judicial authority. However, he pointed out that the term judicial authority could include both officials "of the judiciary and the MP."
Currently, the power to intercept calls is handled by the Criminal Chamber of the Court, to which Almengor now belongs, whenever requested by the prosecution.However, Article 26 of the Drugs Act (Act 23 of 1986, as amended by Act 13 of 1994) states that the Attorney General's Office will "authorize" the recording of telephone conversations, where there is evidence of the commission of a felony.
"I do not want to waste time doing legal analysis, because this is a political issue " said Mario Galindo, when asked about the request for an appeal to the court by Ana Matilde Gómez.
Lawyer, former finance minister, Molirena party founder and a member of the Constitutional review committee member of the Political Constitution in 1983, Galindo believes that Gomez will be called to trial and eventually convicted.
"She's going to be condemned, although not guilty of anything. In my opinion there is no possibility of her return to her position” he said. Although the crime of abuse of authority charged against Gomez carries a penalty of 6-18 months in prison, Galindo anticipated that she will not go to jail.
"I'm not a witch or predictor, but they are not going to orde imprisonment. because they do not not want to create a martyr, "he said.
He also predicted that the conviction will be divided: five votes for to four against, as happened when the court met to decide the temporary suspension of Gomez.