Edita Guerrero, a gray and endless affair nine years later: “Until today, it shows the horror of the country’s shabby judicial management”

The grave is in the Parque del Recuerdo, a cemetery on the outskirts of the city, and for the past nine years it has been laden with floral arrangements, posters or stuffed animals every March, the month in in which he was born and died. Edit Guerrero, former singer of Corazón Serrano. In mid-2014, under the protection of around 100 police officers, the staff of the public prosecutor’s office came here to carry out an exhumation.

It was a sunny morning. The stagecoach responded, strictly speaking, to an inquiry that highlighted Paul Olortigathe widower, as Edita’s alleged femicide, and changed the first version of her death: an aneurysm.

GlobeLiveMedia spoke with its author, the writer and lawyer Umberto Jarabenchmark for investigative journalism in the country.

-SANNA Clínica Belén, where Edita died, hired you for crisis management in 2014. This is how you came to the file.

Yes, I came professionally because they involved five doctors from the clinic. When I finished the subject, I saw that there was an investigation which went further and concerned a case of corruption within the public ministry. So I worked on it for my book.

Let’s see the data. Edita was buried. A few weeks later, an anonymous complaint stirred the version of the aneurysm and announced the possible death by aggression of Paul Olórtiga. The police sent everything to the prosecutor’s office.

It’s a clearly set up affair between the police and Victoria German (Provincial Prosecutor of Piura). Who was the instigator? The Guerrero Neira. And there it is very serious because the own family of the deceased is in charge of making an assembly. The anonymous letter was sent by a hairdresser who was a friend of Edita, and with it the police make a report which they send to the prosecutor.

Instead of checking, the prosecutor opens an investigation and orders arrests. All clinical evidence, also reviewed by Alberto Trelles, one of the best neurosurgeons in Peru, if not the best, clearly showed that it was an aneurysm death. With this invention of an anonymous person, with police officers who lent themselves and a corrupt prosecutor who is still in office, the case was set up.

– With what interest?

Clearly, as expressed in the book, in order not to assume the obligations she (the company of the Guerrero Neira) had towards the heirs of Edita, and bitterly towards the brother-in-law. The family did not want the children to have access to inheritance rights.

-The data sequence continues with the exhumation. In your book, you expose the friendship between the Allemant prosecutor and Rosario Medina, the expert who performed the autopsy on the remains.

Necropsies are carried out in a format integrated into the computerized system of the forensic medicine entity. The document that the prosecutor presented in the process is not included in the minutes, it did not have the format followed in the computerized system, therefore, it is a null document. With this fake autopsy, the prosecutor opens the investigation and, nine years later, two things happen: she does not want to close this investigation because it would be to accept all the mistakes she has made, but above all, this prosecutor remains unpunished .

I made an appointment with the ex-attorney of the nation Pablo SanchezI went to his office. I gave her all the evidence of this criminal act committed by the prosecutor and an audio in which she said to me: ‘go complain where you want’. These tests have never been used and impunity is enormous.

-You also pointed out that the case was used by the exfical of the Nation, Carlos Ramos Heredia.

At that time, Ramos Heredia was in trouble and needed a media affair to distract himself. What seems debatable to me is that journalists, without having read the file, without having consulted it, contented themselves with repeating the version they received from the public prosecutor’s office saying that it was a femicide. Ramos Heredia used this version for all the problems he faced that led to the liquidation of his career.

-With the exhumation, another important litter came out: at least 28 blows, including a violent one to the neck.

It was the other invention of Rosario Medina (expert), who said that the corpse was full of bruises. Medina perversely used a fact: when a person dies, the blood stops circulating, it has no more movement, so in all the corpses it begins to accumulate in different areas of the body because it does not there is more blood activity. This creates the appearance of bruising.

What this supposed forensic expert did was use that to say that these were beating marks, but those beatings don’t exist in medical history. And the other thing, with the ignorance of the prosecutor and the malicious style of the coroner, it was pointed out that the blows had been of such magnitude that they had caused a dislocation of the bone of the atlas of the head, adjacent to the cervical spine . The prosecution’s argument is a clinical medical lie that also contradicts medical science.

-Olórtiga served pre-trial detention. In your book, you mention that he was the great victim.

This is not my position, it is the reality of the facts. The case of Edita Guerrero is an example of how, in our country, if you buy a policeman and a prosecutor, you can end up sending an innocent person to prison. It is the shame of the judiciary, but the great shame of the prosecution is that the corrupt prosecutor Allemant remains in office.

– You say: if we buy a policeman and a prosecutor. Do you mean the Guerrero Neira?

If there is a family that is very interested in seeing an innocent person go to jail and a prosecutor who respects that interest, who sends him to jail, invents evidence and acts on everything, does that connection exist or not? ?

– Do you want a conversation? Yes. How’s it going? I say it’s excellent, it’s hot. The doctors had come out. Did you have any communication with Olórtiga?

I tried to interview him for the book, but he wouldn’t. When you told me for this interview, I searched for more scope and found the prosecutor had varying versions. You are at an impasse. Nine years later, he is not pressing charges, deciding whether the case should be filed or whether he should file an indictment to close it. why is he doing this?

Quite simply because he does not have the elements to present a solid accusation. The national prosecutor himself should review the actions of the prosecutor Allemant because, I insist, she is questioned not only in the Edita Guerrero case, but in others in Piura. Until today, the case shows the horror of the terrible management of legal situations in our country.

-Have you had any approach with the defense or anyone linked to Guerrero Neira as a result of the book?

Verbal threats, but no retaliation. For a simple reason: because they are aware that before any action, I have all the proof of the barbarity they have committed. It would be shooting yourself in the feet (the Guerrero Neiras’ lawyer, who does not access the press to deal with the case, confirmed in April 2015 that they would file a criminal complaint against Umberto Jara).

– After carrying out several journalistic investigations, what did this book represent for you?

An immense malaise for the country in the face of tremendous fragility. This has a name: legal uncertainty, and it is very serious. But what left me with a bitter taste is how journalism can disseminate information without bothering to go to the file, talk to lawyers and consult experts.

-In television reports, complaints of psychological and even physical abuse against the ex-singer have become visible.

Yes, but they were of the same circle as the Neira Warrior. This preliminary consultation work to which every journalist is obliged has not been carried out, but headlines, programs, accusations of femicide have been launched. We journalists cannot take anyone as a witness. We need to know who he is, why he does it, what his intention is.

Finally, it’s a damage that no one is going to repair (in Olórtiga) and that’s what’s serious. There was premeditation there. The Guerrero Neiras knew they were part of a business that was armed. I find everything that happened unfortunate, but let everyone assume what he did.