An important milestone was lived last week in the audio case.
On April 29, the Fourth Guarantee Court revoked the precautionary measure of the lawyer’s preventive detention María Leonarda Villalobos and of the entrepreneur Daniel Sauerboth charged with several economic crimes in the case. Villalobos remained 245 days deprived of liberty at the San Miguel prison, while Sauer was close to Captain Yáber.
“A total house arrest and a national roots are sufficient for now,” said Judge Carolina Herrera in the case of the lawyer, while in the case of Sauer, he considered that he had collaborated with the investigation, which had irreproachable previous conduct and that there was no glimpse of danger of fugging.
The decision of the Court of First Instance was not well received either in the Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office or in the State Defense Council, which is a complainant in the case.
Both agencies presented appeal resources, arguing that they are “A danger to society’s security”And given the severity of crimes they should return to preventive detention.
The Prosecutor’s Office
The Prosecutor’s Office questioned the Court’s decision, noting that it caused a “grievance” for investigation and stating that the defenses They had not presented new history that changed the course of the cause.
Based on article 140 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the Prosecutor’s Office in its appeal argued that both represented a danger to the security of the company for the seriousness of the fact, the severity of the assigned penalty, The number of crimesthe existence of pending processes and act in a group or gang.
“The analysis of whether or not the freedom of an accused constitutes a danger to society is not a criminological prediction, it is not an indeterminate concept or delivered to the arbitration of the appreciation of the judge of guarantee of the day,” is affirmed in the text signed by the attached prosecutor Juan Pablo Araya.
Likewise, the persecuting entity questioned collaboration in the investigation. “The fact that both accused have declared in the Prosecutor’s Office on several occasions cannot assume on its own the configuration of the substantial collaboration attenuator to clarify the facts of article 11 No. 9 of the Criminal Code.”
On the latter, the Prosecutor’s Office argues that “although they have declared, both accused on several occasions, in the Prosecutor’s Office, these accused have mostly contributed their version of the facts, stories that result in many contradictory points with each other, but also with the remaining versions and background of the investigation.”
CDE
Similarly, the State Defense Council, which filed a complaint against Luis Hermosilla, Daniel Sauer and María Leonarda Villalobos on December 5, 2023, said that the decision of Judge Herrera was “insufficiently founded” and that he moved away from the merit of the process.
“The decision does not controvew the material budgets of the crimes, but was mainly founded on the passage of time and the need for caution,” is indicated in the brief presented by the lawyer Leonardo Corral.
Precisely, they emphasized the passage of time. In that sense, they say that although article 145 of the Criminal Procedure Code provides for the review of preventive detention after six months, “The passage of time is not an element by itself enough to decree another precautionary measure”.
“The course of time can be relevant in cases where more than the legal maximum is extended or the investigation has been carried out for a long time in relation to the crimes object of it, but in the present case Not only has it not been close to the maximum legal termbut, given the complexity of this, the number of victim, the number of accused, the abundant criminal reiteration, among other factors, It has spread for a reasonable time”, Finish on this point.
The applications were entered on the 5th of this month to the guarantee court, which resolved the next day. Until Wednesday the resources were not yet high to the Court.
