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Imagen alusiva a la citación judicial en el caso reabierto. · Erick Prometeo Media

Prosecutors summon Hollman Morris over alleged violent sexual act

Prosecutors summoned Hollman Morris to a charge hearing on 17 November for an alleged violent sexual act in Madrid in 2011, after reopening a case closed in…

--- The context --- The case dates back to events that allegedly took place in Madrid in 2011 and returned to the courts after years on file. The complainant is journalist and columnist María Antonia García de la Torre, who at the time sought to write about a documentary co-directed by Hollman Morris with filmmaker Juan José Lozano. --- The facts --- The Attorney General's Office summoned Hollman Morris, former manager of Colombia's national radio and television service, to a charge-imputation hearing for the alleged crime of violent sexual act. The hearing will take place on 17 November and the charge includes an aggravating circumstance. That crime carries between eight and 16 years in prison, and the aggravating factor raises that penalty. García de la Torre filed the complaint on 11 September 2019 and described an alleged forced kiss and touching without her consent. The file was closed on 7 October 2022 and reopened on 20 April 2026. --- The positions --- Morris has denied the forced-kiss account. In 2019 he maintained, in attributed indirect form, that the two kissed in a Lavapiés bar at two in the morning and that a strategy lay behind the accusation. His lawyer, Claudia Cristancho, objects to the reopening because she considers the criminal action extinguished. By contrast, García de la Torre's lawyer, María Camila Correa, argued that reactivation allows the initial error to be corrected. --- What remains unknown --- The outcome of the 17 November hearing is not yet known, nor whether additional measures will follow. It is also undefined how the disciplinary investigation over alleged political use of public media during his tenure will advance in parallel. --- Unanswered questions --- What elements now support the violent sexual act classification? How will the defense answer the argument about extinction? What effect will the imputation have on Morris's trajectory after he assumed the management role on 18 April 2024? --- EPM analysis --- The reopening shifts the center of debate: the question is no longer only what happened in 2011, but whether the state classified the facts correctly in 2022, when prosecutor Alfonso Bonilla reduced them to injury through physical acts. Prosecutor Marcela Abadía argued that a mistaken classification strips conduct of its legal and symbolic weight. 📌 EPM Take: In EPM's view, the 17 November summons must be read with full presumption of innocence and without anticipated convictions, because everything attributed to Morris remains alleged and he denies it. At the same time, correcting a mistaken classification is legitimate when the first reading reduced an alleged sexual crime to a lesser offense. Prosecutors must prove each element of the criminal type and the defense must be able to challenge the reopening with full guarantees.
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