Photo REINER MONTERO.
COSTA RICA NEWS – Judge Miguel Ángel Córdoba Lizano, after admitting hiring in December 2012 a hitman to kill judge Jorge Paisano Saborio, over work problems, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the crime of attempted murder.
Related: Pococi Judge Arrested For Attempted Murder of Fellow Judge
The court agreed with the prosecutor who maintained that Lizano contracted the would-be killers out of vengeance for a negative report of this work habits.
In the trial three other men, Alfaro Venegas, Víquez Gonzalez and Platero Ramirez, were identified as the perpetrators of the attack (planned and executed the shots), were sentenced each to 13 years and four months in prison.
The judgement was read by Pococí de Limón criminal court judge Johana Bogantes, Wednesday morning.
The case will go through an automatic appeal process where the file will be combed for procedural errors. The fourth witness received a three year sentence for lending the hitmen the car used in the attempted murder. The case was over in two days due to overwhelming proof against the defendants.
The near fatal attack occurred on Dec. 14, 2012, near the stadium in Guapiles when the three men intercepted Paisano’s car as the judge was on his way to work. Of the shots fired, only two actually hit the car, passing through the back window.
One bullet imbedded itself in the headrest of the driver’s seat, coming within inches of the judge’s head. Paisano attributed his narrow escape to the fact that he had leaned forward at the moment of impact to adjust his car radio.
Despite this near miss, Paisano, in purely Costa Rican fashion, pleaded to the court to pardon Lizano but neither prosecution nor the panel of judges were in any mood to make an exception to the law. The case was conducted in abbreviated form because Lizano admitted his guilt.
Source: La Nacion, iNews.co.cr
