Forensic Report on Hugo Javier: Assault Cannot Be Ruled Out

The forensic report on former Central governor Hugo Javier González leaves open the possibility that he was assaulted. It also stops short of identifying a single cause for the severe injuries that left him in intensive care.

Dr. Jorge Maldonado, a Judicial Branch forensic doctor, prepared the report after examining González at the Hospital Nacional de Itauguá. The document, dated September 7 and submitted to the Criminal Enforcement Court for Economic Crimes, Corruption and Organized Crime No. 3, described a critical clinical condition.

González was found with a Glasgow Coma Scale score of 3 out of 15. He had been intubated, placed on assisted mechanical ventilation and fitted with a central venous line, a urinary catheter and an external ventricular drain. The physical examination recorded a roughly seven-centimeter bruise on the left forehead, extensive bruising around both eyes with marked eyelid swelling, a bruised injury on the back of the right hand and a combined bruising and abrasion injury on the left forearm. The doctor could not examine his back, buttocks, thighs or legs because moving him posed a risk.

Imaging showed three hyperdense lesions in the midbrain compatible with acute hemorrhagic events, another hyperdense image in the frontal lobe’s olfactory region, and an acute extracranial hematoma in the left frontotemporoparietal area associated with a linear fracture of the frontal bone.

The report said the injuries themselves could be objectively confirmed, including the skull fracture, extracranial hematoma and intracranial hemorrhages. But the available evidence could not establish a categorical causal link among all the findings or determine the precise order in which they occurred. The possibilities therefore include trauma from a fall or assault, as well as a hypertensive crisis and stroke. Earlier clinical records had listed the initial diagnosis as “traumatic brain injury versus cerebrovascular accident.”