On February 3, 2020, Ventura escaped for the second time from La Nueva Joya prison, where he was serving a 50-year sentence imposed in July 2018 for the kidnapping and multiple homicide of five young people of Asian descent in La Chorrera, West Panama, committed between 2010 and 2011. In November 2020, the sentence was reduced to 30 years. The Supreme Court unanimously decided not to admit expert evidence of on-site inspection, surveying, and forensic photography taken from Gilberto Ventura Ceballos's cell after his recapture in 2020. Following a constitutional guarantee appeal filed by the Public Ministry in August 2025, the Supreme Court had admitted the evidence to be presented during the oral trial on February 24, but today the tribunal denied it. Roiz Navarro, from Ventura's defense team, indicated that the evidence, which recorded the state of the cell bars that had been vandalized, was rejected because 'it was carried out without the presence of a competent lawyer.' The convict was recaptured ten days later in the El Salao sector of Remedios, in the western province of ChiriquÃ, bordering Costa Rica. The victims of this atrocious case, which shocked Panama at the time, were identified as: Yessenia Argelis Loo Kam (18), Young Jian Wu (27), Sammy Zeng Chen (19), Joel Maurio Liu Wong (19), and Georgina del Carmen Lee Chen (18).
Panama's Supreme Court Rejects Evidence in Murder Case
Panama's Supreme Court unanimously decided not to admit expert evidence from convict Gilberto Ventura's cell after his second escape. The ruling comes in the trial for the kidnapping and murder of five young people of Asian descent.
