Asuncion – Fifteen of the two-dozen people charged in the 2004 kidnapping and subsequent murder of an ex-president’s daughter went on trial here Monday amid tight security.
Paraguayan prosecutors plan to call more than 300 witnesses in the case involving the abduction and death of Cecilia Cubas, daughter of former head of state Raul Cubas.
Nearly all of the defendants belong to the tiny Paraguayan leftist group Patria Libre (Free Homeland), which is said to have carried out the crime with advice from Rodrigo Granda, erstwhile “foreign minister” of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, that Andean nation’s largest guerrilla group.
Prosecutors here have brought a separate indictment against Granda, behind bars in Colombia since December 2004, when he was captured in Caracas by bounty hunters and brought to Bogota.
Present at Monday’s opening session in Asuncion were all 15 defendants in Paraguayan hands as well as the family of the victim.
Of the eight other people charged in the case, six are in custody in Argentina pending possible extradition to Paraguay while the other two have been granted political asylum in Bolivia.
The trial, which is expected to last for months, comes almost a year-and-a-half after the Feb. 16, 2005, discovery of Cecilia Cubas’ body inside a hidden underground chamber at a residence in Ñemby, just outside the Paraguayan capital.
Patria Libre’s Osmar Martinez is accused of organizing the squad of armed men who on Sept, 21, 2004, intercepted Cubas in her car just yards away from her home in the Asuncion suburb of San Lorenzo.
The five defense attorneys – three hired by the defendants and two others appointed by the court – put forward a motion asking for the charges to be dismissed based on the prosecution’s failure to show that their clients committed any offense.
They also asked that the court exclude some of the prosecution’s evidence, including telephone records and data taken from defendants’ computers.
Speaking for the prosecution, Rogelio Ortuzar argued against the defense motions and petitioned to be allowed to add evidence and witnesses not listed in the original indictment.
Each defendant faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
Chief defendant Martinez proclaimed his innocence and called the prosecution a “farce” mounted by authorities against Patria Libre.
“It is a political persecution. The judges must operate with freedom; if they have so much evidence and laws exist that can prove our culpability, there was no need to depict us in advance as criminals,” he said.
Former President Cubas, meanwhile, said he was confident the police and prosecutors had arrested and charged the right people for his daughter’s abduction and slaying, a crime that shocked Paraguayans.
Prosecutors say Martinez sought advice from the Colombian rebel Granda on his negotiations with the Cubas family over a ransom for Cecilia, for whose safe return the ex-president and his relations reportedly handed over roughly $300,000, but to no avail.
Colombia’s ambassador to Paraguay, Carlos Alberto Bernal, while noting Monday that Bogota and Asuncion do not have an extradition treaty, said his government is ready to cooperate fully with investigations of Granda’s possible link to the crime.
Cecilia Cubas, 31, was the elder of the two daughters of Raul Cubas and his first wife, Mirtha Gusinky.
