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Case Odebrecht puts under scrutiny the main man of confidence of Correa
Posted On 16 Nov 2017
Ecuadornews:
Elected Vice President, Jorge Glas, is the highest-ranking political personality to go to trial for the Odebrecht plot in Ecuador, a process that exposes the alleged bribery that took place in the country under the government of Rafael Correa.
The second authority was charged on Tuesday along with twelve other defendants, for the crime of alleged illicit association, having supposedly agreed to illegal payments of 1 and 1.3 percent for each contract awarded for five major works when he was responsible of strategic areas between 2010 and 2016, with which he would have benefited more than 13 million dollars.
Glas, who was number two on the electoral list with Lenin Moreno in April’s elections, but was removed from office by the president due to political disagreements, has been in preventive detention since October 2 in the investigation process of the Odebrecht case.
After assuming his charge on May, Moreno announced a “crusade” against corruption at all levels of the institutional apparatus and his departure from Glas coincided with the first signs pointing to his alleged involvement in the Odebrecht case, which splashed in the middle of the year to several Latin American leaders and exmandatarios.
On the court´s decision , the president keeps, for the moment, an official silence in clear contrast to his predecessor, who criticized the justice and defended Glas, who was his vice president.
“The Government of Mr. Moreno is transitional and responds to the interests of Alianza País (AP, formation that he directs) and in some way it is difficult to show the great corruption apparatus in the ten years of Correa’s government”, believes Santiago Basabe , Professor of Comparative Politics in the Latin American Faculty. (I)
