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Prosecutor’s office takes more versions before closing Balda case instruction
Posted On 12 Jul 2018
Ecuadornews:
Six days after the closing of the fiscal investigation stage, which investigates the presumed kidnapping of activist Fernando Balda in Colombia, more than twenty people, including some of the accused and former officials of former President Rafael Correa’s regime, should expand their initial versions or declare for the first time.
Today, at 12:00, for example, Correa will expand his version from the Consulate of Brussels, in Belgium, where he resides. The diligence was ordered by the Prosecutor’s Office, but at the request of Caupolicán Ochoa, defense of the former president
Against Correa there is a prison order with red diffusion from Interpol, which was appealed by his defense. Carlos Estarellas Velázquez, an expert in international law, argues that even if that arrest warrant was final, it is the power of Belgium to make it effective or not.
At the same time as Correa, but in Quito, the ex-president of the Assembly and current legislator, José Serrano, was summoned, with whom the former Intelligence Raul Chicaiza would have met to tell him what he was living for supposedly fulfilling his police duty in Colombia against Balda.
On Monday, however, was cited to expand its version Rommy Vallejo, former national secretary of Intelligence (Senain), who had to intervene yesterday, from Chicago, United States. The Attorney General, Paul Perez, at the request of the defendant, re-announced the appearance and on the same impulse he summoned another eleven people.
Felipe Rodríguez, lawyer of Balda, maintains that the new versions would not vary his theory of the case. For him, they serve for the prosecutor Perez to accumulate elements to open investigations for other crimes.
Balda’s defense ensures that he is only waiting for the expert reports of the chain of command, command structure and historical context being carried out by experts from the Universidad Andina and the Flacso.
Given the request to Judge Daniela Camacho by the defense of Correa, to send an official letter to the National Assembly in order to be informed if Attorney Perez has been installed in the post in the Legislative, she replied that this action It is not your competence.
Fernando Molina, another of the former president’s attorneys, points out that the proceedings that are being carried out will serve to determine that the elements of conviction of connection against Correa “do not have a legal basis, nor do they have verification mechanisms”.
Diego Chimbo, defense of agents Raúl Chicaiza and Jessica Falcón, says that the versions that are received in these last days of instruction, serve to polish details. He believes that the crime and its perpetrators are fully established.
In the last few days, new declassified information corresponding to the Senain was added to the file, said another of Balda’s lawyers, Jairo Lalaleo. According to him, with these data and once the fiscal instruction ends, the total amounts used in the operation to kidnap Balda can be determined. (I)
