Colmenates case: lists ruling in the case of Laura Moreno – Investigative Unit

Now mechanical engineer Jessy Quintero breathed easy two weeks ago. According to relatives, Jessy (30 years old) learned from EL TIEMPO that she had just prescribed the crime that linked her for a decade with the death of her friend Luis Andrés Colmenares: alleged false testimony and cover-up of homicide.

She had to endure even 14 months of home detention so that, at least judicially, she was detached from that death, which occurred on Halloween night in 2010, after a costume party for students from the Universidad de los Andes.

(We invite you to read: Can the Colmenares case be reopened due to an alleged new photo?)

Things, however, are different for Laura Moreno. Although a judge acquitted both women of any responsibility in this case, the appeal that the Prosecutor’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office and the defense of the Colmenares – led by criminal lawyer Jaime Lombana – presented before the Superior Court of Bogotá has yet to be resolved.

(We invite you to read: Case for the death of Andrés Colmenares is still alive in court)

And Laura Moreno still has 340 days to prescribe any action against him.

Accelerator to the case

Laura’s statute of limitations is longer than Jessy’s because she was investigated for the crime of aggravated homicide as an alleged improper co-author. And the prescription is linked to the days in prison that can be imposed for that crime.

(Further: ‘In Colmenares case there was alteration and destruction of evidence’)

But EL TIEMPO established that the Court will rule before that happens and the Colmenares case celebrates a new anniversary.

In the midst of media pressure, Judge José Jairo Agudelo Parra – who has intervened in other high-profile cases, such as the graffiti artist Diego Felipe Becerra and tutelas against Álvaro Uribe – is in the final assessment of the case and in the preparation of the draft failure.

Indeed, reporters from this newspaper established that, no later than two weeks, he will present it to his roommates for discussion.

The magistrate took about three years to review the thick and delicate file. And to its extension (341 CDs and 32 folders, in addition to three appeals) was added the fact that exclusive dedication to the project was not viable.

(In context: Colmenares case: it has already prescribed a process against Jessy, and Laura’s?)

“By Agudelo’s office dozens of first and second instance guardianship actions pass, it has other appeals in turn, the examination of the projects of the two magistrates with whom the decision chamber formed and the advancement of first instance processes. Added to that is the exercise of the function of guarantee control judge, ”an informed source told EL TIEMPO.

Fail in December?

And this is how Magistrate Agudelo himself expressed it to the Colmenares family, who have asked for the speed of the ruling, through the criminal lawyer Jaime Lombana.

Despite the workload, the magistrate estimates that, after some rooms in which his legal approach is discussed, a date may be set for the reading of the second instance ruling. That, however, would not be the end of the process. It is certain that either party will appeal it in case it is adverse to them.

In this scenario, the Supreme Court of Justice would go to cassation, where the review times are longer, playing in favor of the prescription.

In any case, criminal lawyer Jaime Granados, defense attorney for Laura Moreno, assumes that the Court will confirm the acquittal of his client and will also confirm that it was an unfortunate accident and not a murder.

“The ruling in the case of Carlos Cárdenas has nothing evidentially to do with it, in which, although he was acquitted, it was considered a homicide”, says Granados. And he adds that the overwhelming evidence, the testimonies collected and the reports of the international forensics close to the case – and today in the hands of Magistrate Agudelo – confirmed that there was neither beating nor homicide.

But Luis Andrés’s family assures the opposite and has begun to reveal a series of photos that, for them, would support the hypothesis that Colmenares received a blow to his forehead.

According to them, at no time have the judges indicated that it was not a homicide, but that there is insufficient evidence against the accused.

“What the court said was that my son had been murdered, that the person could not be convicted because there was not enough evidence, but at no time did it point out that he was innocent,” Colmenares’ mother Oneida told EL TIEMPO Escobar.

And her husband added that although expert experts – such as Miguel Botella – ruled that the blows on the body were the result of the fall, he assures that the expert was hired to say that. In addition, he claims that Botello made the opinion based on photos and not in contact with his son’s body.

But Granados is emphatic in that the sentence that acquitted Laura and Jessy definitely ruled out that Luis Andrés had been murdered.

(See here all the articles of the Investigative Unit of EL TIEMPO)

What will Judge Agudelo Parra’s draft ruling say?

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