Monday, May 14, 2007

Nifonged in Nicaragua: Local Press Begins to Support Volz

Xavier Reyes Alba, director of Trinchera de la Noticia, recently conducted an interview with Eric Volz at El Modelo prison. Alba's exclusive interview with Volz was published in two parts, both running on the front page of Trinchera de la Noticia, starting on May 10. With this interview, Trinchera de la Noticia, becomes the second Managua daily newspaper - La Prensa recently published an interview with Volz as well - to offer its readers an opportunity to learn Volz story directly from the falsely convicted American. In addition to the interview with Volz, the online edition of Trinchera de la Noticia now offers a direct link to the Friends of Eric Volz website on its homepage. In contrast to the biased and inflammatory coverage that contributed to the public condemnation, and eventual false conviction, of Volz, these interviews and the promotion of Volz's cause by the local media clearly signals a positive shift in local coverage.

Part one of Alba's interview
as translated by Google language tools:

“I request listen to my history”

Eric Stanley Volz, the young American condemned to 30 years by a murder that alleges did not commit, decided to count their history to Trench of the News. He said that he breaks silence because “I mean to him to the Nicaraguan town that reconsiders this history for a moment and listens to my version, because never there am it counted”.

It dressed a black t-shirt, Puma, to which it took the sleeves by the intense heat that in their cell must feel much more ardent, short of he himself color and equally black shoes tennis. In that image it slightly emphasized his red face by the sun and the high temperatures, the white cords of his shoes and the “spouses” with which they took to the office where the interview passed and that they cleared to him before beginning the talk.

“I love much Nicaragua, I am not suffered with the Nicaraguan town, but the means have removed the things from context”, said as a advanced to our interview.

A civil employee of the Penitentiary System, standing up next to the door, observed kind, as he establishes the internal procedure. Before the interview it was necessary to fulfill a last requirement. Alcaide of the jail asked to him if it voluntarily accepted to give the interview. Volz said that if and next signed of its fist and letter the respective authorization.

Thus ours prolonged conversation began.

Its innocence

Volz said at any moment that he is innocent. “I feel bad because I am in favor imprisoned of a crime that I did not commit, of no way. I am condemned 30 years unjustly”, adding that “one suffers in the jail of moral and physical way, my family and my friends are suffering”.

He adds that he trusts the Court of Appeals that has the case in its hands. “I have confidence in the justice of Nicaragua” because “I believe that the Court she is in a context very different from the one from the court of Rivas” that condemned it to 30 years by the murder of Doris Jiménez, happened Tuesday 21 of November of 2006, between 11:45 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. in the town of San Juan of the South.

Its body was found about 2:00 p.m. inside the store Sun Fashions, that both, Eric and she, raised to sell clothes for the tourists.

Doris was tied, strangled and asphyxiated.

Nowadays he is admitted that the judge who dictated the sentence of first instance was put under different pressures, specially of some means of information and the family who organized protests in the outskirts of the judicial enclosure.

“I only request an appeal become attached to the law, that focuses not in rumors, not in opinions, but that in the tests that exist and those that does not exist. I deserve a process become attached to right”, says Volz.

The young North American thinks that “judge Ivette Toruño was in a very delicate situation, very difficult, in whom she had to look for her exit. There was much pressure”.

A brief summary

The defense of Eric Volz presented/displayed ten witnesses who said to have been with him or who saw it in Managua in the four key hours that the murder happened. Managua is to two hours of the place of the facts.

“We very hard had a defense, in which all the facts very were connected, in such a way that if eliminated a witness had to eliminate them all”, affirms.

The lawyers of the American said to the judge who no laboratory test, recovered in the scene of the crime, tied to Eric with the facts.

According to the declarations of their witnesses, Eric arrived at the area of the office - because she lived in the same house about 9:15 a.m. The master of keys, the guard of security and, at least, five employees of the magazine EP, that he directed, said it to have seen.

To 10:30 a.m. Eric she declared to have received two women who were interested in EP Magazine with those who she was until 11:00 a.m. At noon, met with the journalist and foreign correspondent Ricardo Castillo to speak of how to collaborate with the magazine.

Both, Volz and Castillo maintained a telephone conference with Nick Purdy, who was in Atlanta, Georgia.

According to the story made by Volz the conference it finalized to 1:14 p.m.

To Eric and Castillo Adam added itself Walls, worker of the magazine, with that they ate for lunch fish to curry with vegetables prepared by Martha, the EP manager.

Castle left the office about 2:00 p.m.

The bad news

As of this moment, the hours and the movements of Volz are key to understand the happened thing since in the judgment it was accused by a witness to have been, to those same hours, in San Juan of the South violating and assassinating Doris, along with the fiancè of her Armando Llanes, a young nica-North American of a well-known family of Rivas.

Also it was said, in the process, that committed the crime and returned to Managua and soon it returned to San Juan of the South. The office of the public prosecutor had an only witness to locate it in the scene and at the time of the crime, a personage who had been indicated like suspect until he negotiated the condition of witness.

The calls done from the cellular one of the young person also are important, but the judicial one discarded the declaration of the witnesses of the Erics who were with him in Managua and discredited the certainty of a company of cellular telephony that detailed the communications maintained by the processing.

Eric says to have received the news of the murder, of a friend of Doris who called it to his cellular one about 2:43 p.m. Also related that that hour, another witness of Rossy name saw it in his office of Managua.

Another controversial aspect is related to the rent of a car to Hertz Rent to Car to travel to San Juan of the South, about 3:00 p.m. Volz maintains that it signed the receipt of the contract of the car about 3:11 p.m.

“The judge did not consider the calls telephone. She said that another person could make the calls. Also she hurled the witness of the Office of the public prosecutor, Gaby Sobalvarro, who declared in the judgment that had called to my number, my cellular one, the 2:43 of that day”.

She indicated that “we presented/displayed other witnesses who said that they were with me in the office. There are others did not see me but that they spoke with me by telephone, from the nine in the morning until I received the call of Gaby”.

Not yet he explains himself because the judge said that he had “time to assassinate Doris and to return to Managua, did not take into account that I was using the telephone all the day. Not only the call of Gaby verifies that I was in Managua but that are many more”.

Facts without answers

“The 21 of February of the 2007, when the Court had to present/display all the base for his decision and sentences, Judge did not appear. However, the Judge caused that a secretary read his decision before the presents in the Court. Although we hoped to count on the complete transcriptions of the judgment and the sentence in days, this is what we know:

“The Court disqualified and rejected testimony of Ricardo Castillo, journalist recognized internationally. The verdict also implies that it rejected the sworn testimony of Nick Purdy, Rossy Argüello and Eric. Also it was refused to give credit to the testimony of the medical experts whom they testified that no of the tests of the scene could tie with Eric; specifically, the tests that the blood samples, flowed and gathered hair did not have relation with Eric. It was refused to accept no of the tests of the telephone registries that they showed that Eric was in a call in conference in Managua with a commercial partner in Atlanta. It discredited and it ignored the registries of base station and notes of the instantaneous messages provided by Mr. Purdy.

“However, the judge leaned in the testimony of confeso drug addict Lopez-Danglas, who had been accused of the murder and had been released after to have obtained total immunity in exchange for their testimony against Eric. The judge apparently also leaned in a photography of Eric, who according to her sample that had a scratch behind the shoulder. One leaned even though in this that the physical tests showed that the victim did not have blood under the nails of her hands, and therefore, she did not scratch the attacker, and in view of the testimony of Eric who said that she scratched herself there after taking féretro of Doris, during the funeral.

“In spite of the lack of tests that credit the accusation; even though that were ten people who saw Eric in Managua when they killed Doris; even though that Lopez-Danglas is a well-known drug addict (in fact, confeso); even though which Lopez-Danglas testified in exchange for total immunity, after to be accused of the murder; and even though that the medical experts found that Lopez-Danglas had scratches in all the body and the penis, the judge declared guilty Eric and she sentenced it to 30 years”.

Fragment of the testimony published in the page Web Friends of Eric Volz.

Tomorrow: A high official of the Police interested in that he confessed. The hand pachona that manipulated the correspondent of a newspaper. What made change to the mother of Doris Jiménez?

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