Medicina Legal, Colombia’s national forensics agency, has admitted possible weaknesses in its expert evidence due.
The newly appointed director of Medicina Legal, Carlos Eduardo Valdes Moreno, has committed to strengthening the office for investigations because in some cases, contradictions between scientific and oral evidence have led to prisoners being released.
Valdes stated in an interview with Vanguardia newspaper, that Medicina Legal’s opinions and evidence provided must “comply with [scientific] rigor and thus scientific truth must be able to resist contradictory evidence in the trial.” He added that the institution must continue modernizing its methods in order to be able to achieve this.
However, Valdes, who has just taken over the role from Juan Angel Isaac Llanos, lamented to Vanguardia that despite the level of expertise in personnel at Medicina Legal, their work and modernization efforts are severely hampered by the low wages paid to employees and the lack of a budget the department has. This, he added, affects the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the work carried out.
Valdes is a surgeon specialising in forensic medicine. He has worked for the Attorney General’s Office for 13 years, seven of which have been on behalf of its criminal investigations division.