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COSTA RICA |
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Former President Rodríguez Trial To Start In February
February 15, 2010, is the date set for the start of
former president Miguel Ángel Rodríguez
(1998-2002) trial in
the ICE-Alcatel case. The date was confirmed
by the trial judges, Rosaura García Aguilar,
Ileana Méndez Sandí and Jorge Camacho
Morales assigned to the case.
The trial will be held at the Tribunales de
Goicoechea, in San José, the same courthouse
that spent the better part of the past year
hearing testimony and evidence in the
CCSS-Fischel case that resulted in a guilty
verdict of former president Rafael Angel
Calderón (1990-1994) and seven others.
The ICE-Alcatel case had been scheduled for
trial on November 11, 2008. However due to
conflcting agendas of the judges it was
postponed. García
confirmed date and that she will be chairing the hearing.
The case concerns the alleged payment by the
French telecommunications firm Alcatel to
public officials as part of the process of
obtaining the cellular network contract with
the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad
(ICE).
Rodríguez is alleged to have received
payment from Alcatel in the sum of
us$589.563 dollars, of which us$231.000
dollars was in cash and the balance in
various financial instruments.
Alcatel was awarded the contract to install
400.000 GSM cellular lines, the first of the
two GSM networks installed in the Costa
Rica, which was totally eliminated earlier
this year
as ICE decided to completely break relations
with Alcatel and fused the Alcatel lines to
the Ericsson network.
Rodriguez has denied any wrong doing and
claims that his rights have been trampled
upon. Rodríguez explains his ordeal in the
book "Di
la Cara: Una Batalla Por El Estado Del
Derecho" (I gave face: A
Battle For The State Of Law).
Rodríguez ran three times for president: in
1990 he lost his party's nomination to
Rafael Ángel Calderón. In 1994 he won his
party's nomination but lost the election to
José María Figueres. He finally secured the
presidency in 1998.
On 7 June 2004 he was unanimously elected to
replace César Gaviria as secretary general
of the OAS. He began his term on 15
September 2004 but served only 1 month
before stepping down choosing to return to
Costa Rica to face the allegations, when he
was placed first under house arrest and two
weeks later in jail, pending further
investigation. |
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