legal

Police accused of injury

A student of the Universidad de Panamá filed a criminal complaint against director of the Unidad de Control de Multitudes de la Policía Nacional David Ramos yesterday, claiming he was injured when riot police were called in to break up protests on the campus May 9.

Accompanied by his lawyer, Marx Antonio Norambuena submitted his lawsuit with prosecutors at the Fiscalía Séptima de Circuito of the Ministerio Público, who specialize in cases involving the country’s principal university.

In the complaint, the young man alleges that he suffered injuries to his left arm after crowd control agents with the Policía Nacional tossed a tear gas bomb into a throng of students.

“I’ve started to recover but I still feel pain,” said Norambuena. “Now I’m asking that justice be done to prevent something like this from happening again and affecting other people.”

When questioned about the lawsuit, spokesperson for the Policía Nacional Eduardo Lim Yueng repeated reports made earlier by riot police, alleging that officers followed protocol when carrying out crowd control measures that day. However, should prosecutors decide otherwise, Yeung said the officers will abide by the ruling.

He added that all police officials, including sub-commissioner Ramos are willing to cooperate. Lim Yeung confirmed that they have already complied with public prosecutor’s requests for a list of munitions used that day.