Bogotá High Court criticises Prosecutor's investigation in Hilsaca Eljadue case
The Court confirmed the acquittal of businessman Alfonso Hilsaca Eljadue and stated that the Prosecutor's Office did not verify its witnesses with sufficient rigour.
Bogotá Court: "More imaginings than realities" in case against Hilsaca Eljadue
The Criminal Division of the Bogotá High Court did not merely confirm an acquittal. On 9 October 2024, in ruling on an appeal lodged by the Prosecutor's Office in proceedings against businessman Alfonso del Cristo Hilsaca Eljadue, the Court set out in writing the deficiencies which, in its view, the investigation had from its inception.
According to hablalonoticias.com, the ruling is unusually direct in its criticisms of the prosecution authority.
Evidence constructed upon unverified witnesses
In analysing the ruling, the Division warned that the Prosecutor's Office "from the beginning of the investigation did not verify in strict form the information that both witnesses provided to it", and that "only they were the fundamental piece to build this case". In assessing the entire body of evidence, the Court was equally forceful: "Here there are more imaginings than realities".
The phrase that gives the ruling its title is not merely rhetorical. It appears in the body of the analysis as a diagnosis: "There lacked the necessary rigour for a serious investigation".
A warning to the prosecution apparatus
Before the operative part, the Division issued a direct observation to the Prosecutor's Office: "a critical look by the prosecution at what these and other witnesses were saying would alone have sufficed to have redirected the investigation and to have avoided this drain on the judicial apparatus".
This type of explicit censure is not customary in criminal sentences, which normally restrict themselves to determining whether the evidence reached the standard required for conviction. In this case, the Court went further: it indicated that an early critical review of the testimony would have been enough to prevent the case from reaching trial.
Acquittal confirmed
In the second section of the operative part, the Court ordered "the acquittal of Alfonso del Cristo Hilsaca Eljadue to be confirmed". The decision was issued with the rapporteur opinion of magistrate Hermens Darío Lara Acuña, within file number 08001 6099 031 2014 00205 03 (Minutes no. 154).
The proceedings had been initiated in 2014. The Prosecutor's Office appealed the first-instance acquittal seeking its reversal, a request which the Criminal Division entirely rejected.
The full text of the sentence is available in the documentary repository of the Court's press office.
Source: Google News CO — Bogotá