More than 24 hours after her arrest, Ligia Hernández, director of the Victims’ Institute, has not been heard in her first statement because the Seventh Criminal Judge, Fredy Orellana, requested her file, despite the fact that it should have been reviewed by a judge on duty, reported the official’s defense.
Juan José Zaghi, Hernández’s lawyer, who is linked by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) to the Semilla Corruption case, questioned the fact that the hearing had been postponed, since it was tentatively scheduled for August 16, which he described as a violation of the right to defense.
Hernández, who is accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the crime of unregistered electoral financing, was sent to the Matamoros prison, despite her defense requesting that she remain in the Torre de Tribunales cell awaiting the first statement hearing.
“A personal appearance was filed in favor of Hernández because his right to defense was violated,” said the defender, who regretted that Judge Fredy Orellana requested the file, when last Monday a judge ordered that it be heard this Tuesday in a court on duty.
He added that the initial hearing for the statement is tentatively scheduled for August 16, but they have not been notified.
“We do not know the reason why the judge is requesting the file since she was detained at an unsuitable time,” the professional reiterated, adding that “we see a bad intention to affect my client’s rights.”
Zaghi described it as worrying that the judge’s ruling on duty had not been complied with, which is why Hernández will remain in preventive detention.
Hernández, for his part, said that the delay in the first statement is part of the “illegal actions” of the Seventh Court.
The Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) launched an investigation against Semilla in 2023 after Bernardo Arévalo made it to the second round of elections.
The case is based on alleged anomalies in the formation of the party, including an alleged money laundering scheme for which the Prosecutor’s Office has also sought to remove Arévalo’s immunity.
Semilla is suspended by order of Orellana, a judge sanctioned by the United States for considering him “corrupt.”
In a statement, the Arévalo government condemned Hernández’s arrest on “spurious charges, under confidential investigations and without regard to our laws.”
“The investigations by the FECI and the actions of Judge Orellana have no credibility and for that reason, we are certain of his innocence and that of any other defendant in the cases that these agencies are bringing forward,” the statement said.
According to the bulletin, several international organizations have warned that “anti-democratic actors entrenched in the Public Ministry seek to attack democratic institutions and affect national security.”
Hernández, 42, was a deputy for Semilla alongside Arévalo between 2020 and 2024 and on February 1 was appointed by the president to lead the Victims’ Institute, responsible for assisting people affected by crimes in accessing justice and dignified reparation.
“This desperate attack [de la fiscalía] “It represents nothing more than a perverse desire to silence, oppress, and extinguish every attempt to recover our country that remains captured by a small group of criminals,” the official said minutes before being arrested in her office, in a video posted on the social network X.
Arévalo is in conflict with the Attorney General, Consuelo Porras, considered “corrupt” and “undemocratic” by the United States and the European Union.
Arévalo does not have the authority to remove the prosecutor and submitted a bill to Congress to do so, but the project has not advanced.
Porras, on the other hand, asked the highest court to prosecute the president for trying to remove her.
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