Presidential Candidate A No-Show At Court Hearing

(MENAFN- Newsroom Panama) The hearing to charge the presidential candidate for free nomination and deputy of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Zulay Rodríguez, scheduled for Thursday, February 29, was postponed until March 7.

The decision was adopted Thursday by Judge Ariadne García, acting as guarantee judge, given that the deputy did not appear at the event, which began at 2:03 pm and lasted until 3:35 pm.

Judge María Cristina Chen Stanziola acted as prosecutor.

Her
lawyer Ángel Álvarez did participate in the hearing, via Zoom. Álvarez requested to hold the charging hearing on another date since his client was not present. The request was not objected to by Fiscal Magistrate Chen.

Álvarez also told Judge García that his client is no longer a deputy, so the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) no longer has jurisdiction to prosecute her. García said that no formal record or note has reached the Court proving that, in effect, Rodríguez resigned from her seat.

Also connected to the event was a son of the deceased Mexican merchant José Luis Penagos , whose family filed the lawsuit against Rodríguez for the alleged commission of four crimes: money laundering, abuse of trust, illicit association to commit a crime, and against the administration of justice.

The magistrate judge announced that the hearing would resume on March 7. The defense attorney requested that it be exclusively in person, a motion that was accepted by García.

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