Yesterday, the oral trial in the Odebrecht case continued at the First Liquidating Court of Criminal Cases with the reading of the summons to trial. The hearing was marked by challenges from the defense attorneys, who demanded guarantees for due process, the right to confrontation, and the right to a defense. They argued that the process was not affected by decisions of a foreign country, but by internal case management, while criticizing the 'secrecy and concealment' they claim has become recurrent in this judicial process. Attorney Basilio González considered that the thesis held by the Prosecutor's Office lacks foundation in the current conditions of the process, insisting that without an effective adversarial system and properly incorporated evidence, fundamental principles of due process are violated. He also questioned the strength of the file, recalling that Brazil annulled the proceedings, which, he indicated, creates uncertainty about the evidence currently available to the Public Ministry. In the same vein, criminal lawyer Guillermina McDonald stated that the defenses expect the Prosecutor's Office to remedy the existing evidentiary void, as the accusation is mainly based on testimonies from Brazil. She explained that some defenses requested these appearances precisely because those testimonies constitute the basis of the prosecutorial thesis, so it now corresponds to the Public Ministry to demonstrate that it has extraordinary evidence to compensate for that absence. Attorney Ángel Álvarez affirmed that justice loses credibility when decisions are made without the previous procedural acts being duly guaranteed. Attorney Alma Cortés maintained that 'justice must be objective, scientific, and impartial,' and warned that if Judge Baloisa Marquínez does not guarantee the right to confrontation, 'the right to a defense does not exist.'
