Cartagena prosecution officials are being investigated for the release of
a suspected British sex offender from police custody. The man was
released because there was no translator to read him his rights
in English.
President of the Supreme Judicial Council, Judge Maria Mercedes
Lopez Mora, asked the authorities to determine whether the officials committed a crime
by releasing the British citizen, El Espectador reported Tuesday.
The
police caught Englishman Richard James Williams last week while having sex with an
underage boy in the bathroom of a shopping center. The boy, a suspected
child prostitute, told police he had been abused by Williams.
During
the first interrogations, Williams claimed not to understand anything
the policemen said. Therefore, the prosecution let him free “to
avoid a procedural error or a violation of the due process,” an
official source of the judicial police SIJIN said.
However, hotel personnel said the alleged sex tourist spoke Spanish fluently.
Williams is still in the country awaiting his process.