Journalist
24 October 2021
Imprisoned due to a cell phone number
Martín Luque felt an infinite emptiness in his stomach the moment the Anti-Corruption and Anti-Violence against Women investigating judge 2 from El Alto, Miriam Tarqui Flores, ordered his arrest in the San Pedro prison. A numbness of helplessness crept from his feet to his head. His vision blurred and he felt [that he was] in an unknown dimension. He did not know, at that moment, if time was moving forward or moving backward.
Until today, he cannot explain to himself that the prosecutor Favio Maldonado Parada has not heard his statement. Isn’t the word of the defendant his main defense?
Nor is it explained, a year after the fact, that the prosecutor did not take into account the statements of his witnesses who assured that on October 2, 2020, the day of Mónica’s murder, he was kilometers away from the scene of the crime. How is it possible that prosecutor Maldonado has charged him and Judge Tarqui has imprisoned him if he (Martín) did not even know the victim?
The imputation, of terrible and poor writing, says: “the existence of sufficient elements of conviction has been established, the accused Martín Luque with probability perpetrators of the crime (sic) that he is accused of (Femicide Art. 252 Bis Num. 1 of the CC) of the Criminal Code (Art. 233 Num. 1 CPC)”
What are those elements of conviction? In the imputation, there is not even one. The “piece of paper” only reflects the confirmation of the Prosecutor’s bias that fits his evil imagination into an event that never happened.
Martín said, on Compañera radio, that the Prosecutor based his accusation on alleged chats between the victim and the number: 69782496. The Tigo Company reported, in response to a request, that this number was registered in the name of Martín Luque.
“All together we have photographic plates of WhatsApp messages where the now accused had a love relationship with the now-deceased victim of which there are conversations held from September 13 to September 24, who would be the last person with whom the victim would maintain a conversation, which is obtained through collected elements and there is the verification of number 69782496 registered under the name of Mr. Martín Luque, who would have maintained a relationship with the victim in the month of September in which he is the last person who would have been communicated with her ensuring coexistence with the now victim (sic),” says the indictment.
Martín affirmed that the prosecutor did not request the extract of calls from [the number] 69782496 from the beginning of its activation (2018). Even worse, he never found the victim’s cell phone. So how did he access those chats? He wonders. He just found out that in the chats there was a photo of Monica’s partner. And despite this serious evidence, “he accused me anyway,” he adds. The “investigator” did not investigate anything.
The laziness, stupidity, and bad blood of the policeman, the prosecutor, and the judge, responsible for demonstrating the “historical truth” and guaranteeing rights, sent an innocent man to jail.
Martín Luque assured that in 2018 he never registered [the phone] line 69782496 to his name. In that case, who did? He remembers losing his identity card in 2017. He suspects that the person who found it used his identity card to register that number with Tigo [Company].
In his informative statement, Martín said that he never saw the victim in his life. The owner of the house where Mónica lived, [in] Alto de la Alianza area, Mejillones street, El Alto, said that the couple with whom the 23-year-old woman lived was a tall man. Martín is short.
In his accusation, prosecutor Maldonado mentions 23 “elements of conviction”, among them: the first report of preventive police intervention, the autopsy report, and the WhatsApp messages. None of these elements seriously involves Martín.
The incident occurred in the Alto Alianza area, District 3, and Martín was at his home at the moment of the crime, in the Villa Adela [area], miles away from the [crime] scene.
The prosecutor and the judge believed in these “23 elements of conviction” that did not demonstrate anything other than the incapacity of both, and they imprisoned him.
Martín stayed five months and a week in San Pedro. Defeated by the evidence, the Prosecutor ordered the dismissal of the case. He released him after having caused him serious psychological, economic damage (he had debts in the bank and could not pay and spent about $ 15,000 in his defense), and social because he lost friends and family, who turned away from him when they learned of an event that never happened. His two daughters and his wife were also psychologically affected.
Martín, a 35-year-old industrial engineer, asks for financial and civil compensation. Does it correspond? Yes.
Martín doesn’t want anyone else to suffer his bad experience. He doesn’t want anyone else to feel vertigo and fear when passing through the threshold of jail being innocent.
Source: https://brujuladigital.net/opinion/encarcelado-por-un-numero-de-celular
