[chicago-aneinu] Update on Prisoner in Bolivia

Our Brother in Bolivia: Yanky Ostreicher Update Sunday July 8, 2012 11:51 AM Yanky Ostreicher, a 53-year-old flooring contractor from Brooklyn, remains locked in Palmasola Prison in Santa Cruz, without charges, as Bolivian law allows a person to be held without charges up to 18 months. Yanky was arrested a year ago by Bolivian police after it was alleged that he did business with individuals engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering. Yanky belonged to a group of investors that sunk $25 million into growing rice in lush eastern Bolivia. As reported extensively here on Matzav.com, on June 6, the House Subcommittee on Human Rights, chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-Dist. 4) held a hearing on the Ostreicher case. On June 11, Smith met with Ostreicher at the prison, held a press conference, and met with Bolivian officials during a weeklong visit. Smith said the investigative work of former FBI agent Steve Moore, who helped clear Amanda Knox of murder charges in Italy, made it evident to him that Yanky was being framed by a corrupt political system. Bolivian law requires that every document submitted to a court must be numbered by hand. Numbering consists of the numerical value followed by written number (for example: 1/one, 2/two, 3/three). If additional documents are added to a case file, the numbers continue in sequence. By now, Yanky;s case file has more than 2,000 pages. After the 10th court judge referred the case to a higher court - to decide whether he can stay on the case or not - the judge ordered the file to be moved to the 11th court. However - get this - the 11th court judge is currently in Palmasola Prison. He’s been there for the past 21 months. The case file had to be moved to the 4th court. The secretary of the 11th court claimed there were errors in the sequence of numbers, and therefore the case file cannot be moved to the 4th court. It took over a week to correct the error. The secretary of the 4th court claimed that since this case was originally in the 9th court, it should be sent back to the 9th court. The 4th court secretary claimed that the documents were numbered incorrectly and it couldn’t be moved to the 9th court until they were numbered correctly. It took more than a week to correct the errors again. The case file finally arrived at the 9th court on Friday, June 29. The 9th court secretary claimed that the documents were numbered incorrectly and proceeded to correct them again. It should be noted that this was the secretary who had numbered all the documents originally. Finally, this past week, the 9th court secretary completed the corrections and sent the case file in to the judge’s chambers. The judge rejected it, stating that the documents were numbered incorrectly. In the meantime, Yanky will not be seen by a forensic doctor nor will a hearing be scheduled. As Smith remarked recently in an interview, “An innocent man is languishing in prison and no one will help him.” May the Ribono Shel Olam have rachmonus on our brother in Bolivia and in the zechus of our ahavas Yisroel bring the end to this golus. Please continue davening for Yaakov Yehudah ben Shaindel. {Casriel Bauman-Matzav.com Newscenter}