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Ceglia will present protective action to prevent his extradition to the US
Posted On 15 Feb 2019
Ecuadornews:
The computer designer Paul Ceglia, who claims half of Facebook from Mark Zuckerberg and is in detention in Ecuador, will present a protection action next week to prevent his eventual extradition to the United States.
This was stated to Efe on Thursday by one of his lawyers, Jesús López, commenting on the decision adopted last night by the National Court of Justice (CNJ) that rejected an appeal to the sentence that ratifies his extradition.
Lopez said that the extradition is an administrative act of power of the president of the country, Lenin Moreno, who must sign the order for the inmate to be repatriated.
The lawyer said he does not doubt that Moreno will sign the extradition order, more now that, apparently, a principle of reciprocity with the United States could be applied, because in that country the brothers Roberto and William Isaías were arrested last night.
Therefore, “he said,” we are not going to really resort to the Presidency of the Republic, “but to request a” protective action “to revoke the extradition, because Ceglia is subject to an order prohibiting the exit of the country for a trial that faces in Ecuador.
The extradition is an “administrative act”, which would be violating a superior order of a judge who banned the departure of Ceglia from the country, in response to the application of a “very important” rule related to the protection of children and adolescents, added the lawyer.
With the action of protection, he added, it seeks to protect “the best interest of the child”, which is “above” any other “collective interest” or the State, said Lopez.
According to the lawyer, Ceglia will remain detained, although he recalled that next week will serve six months of detention, so he will also submit a request for “habeas corpus” and his immediate release.
Ceglia has not been sentenced in Ecuador and “cannot be deprived of his freedom indefinitely,” said the lawyer to specify that President Moreno has no time to define the extradition order, although there is a legal period of forty days to be repatriate.
The National Court of Justice last night authorized the extradition of Ceglia, accused in the United States of a presumed fraud in the case that confronts the principal of Facebook.
“The Court of Appeal, of the Special Chamber for Criminal Matters, Military Criminal, Criminal Police and Transit, of the National Court of Justice, (…) unanimously, denies the appeal filed by the American-Irish citizen Paul Ceglia, as inadmissible “, Said the ruling.
Said sentence ratifies another one of the 15 of last November, when its extradition was already accepted.
However, Roberto Calderón, another of Ceglia’s lawyers, said that the order should be given by the head of the State, since the handling of foreign policy is “one of the functions of the executive branch.”
Calderón told Efe that Ceglia “will continue fighting to stay in Ecuador, especially for his little Ecuadorian son” Orión, born in this South American country.
According to the ruling of the CNJ, has not prescribed the crime of alleged electronic fraud for which Ceglia is accused in his country, argument that had presented the defense, and did not see the judges valid argument that cannot leave Ecuador to be pending against him “a trial” that forbids him to leave. The 45-year-old American escaped in 2015 from a trial for alleged electronic fraud and extortion to the founder of Facebook, to whom he demanded half of the technology company for allegedly collaborating in its development, plot that includes the movie “The Social Network” (2010). (I)
