A judge of the Fourth Court of Instruction of the National District ordered the Public Prosecutor’s Office to review calls made by the former director of the Metropolitan Office of Bus Services (Omsa), Manuel Rivas, and two other former officials that are linked to acts of corruption and the murder of lawyer Yuniol Ramirez on 13 October 2017. The lawyer was investigating corruption at the Omsa. The two Omsa officials are financial director, colonel Faustino Rosario and businessman Eddy Zorrilla.
The judge gives 30 days to the Public Prosecutor’s Office to deposit the findings. The announcement is made after key accused witness Argenis Contreras returned to the country after being extradited from the United States to where he had fled after the murder.
While originally mentioned as the mastermind of the murder, Manuel Rivas was later only accused of administrative corruption in the murder case.
The judge ordered the Public Prosecutor’s Office to map the calls and whatsapp messages, incoming and outgoing from the first to the 13th of October 2017.
This order comes after the judge accepted a request made by Plutarco Jaquez, lawyer of the accused Argenis Contreras, who argued that the Public Prosecutor’s Office, under former Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez, did not map the cell phones of these officials, only those of others accused in the case.
The judge set the date of 28 June 2021 for the hearings to resume to allow the cell phone findings to be known.
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18 May 2021