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Ex-judge suggests banning Correa’s departure after statements about an attack
Posted On 02 Feb 2018
Ecuadornews:
The former president revealed that he received information on the case from “high levels of government” and even said he knew the names of the terrorists.
Former President of the Republic Rafael Correa, in an interview granted this week, commented on the attack perpetrated last Saturday in the canton of San Lorenzo, in Esmeraldas. Correa said the “case was very serious” because they would be linked to groups with ties to drug trafficking and dissident sectors of the Colombian Armed Forces (FARC). But he added that he could secure these links because he was “passed the information from high government instances” with which, according to him, “has contact with us, who trusts us.” But Correa’s ‘revelations’ did not end there.
In another passage of that interview, the former president confessed that he knew the names of the people who had placed the car bomb in front of the San Lorenzo Police Headquarters. Even Correa indicated that he knew that the terrorists had alerted the residents of the sector in advance to leave their homes and avoid loss of life.
These statements have caused Jorge Acosta, a former permanent justice of the Supreme Court, to feel “shocked, surprised and outraged.” In an exclusive interview with EL TELÉGRAFO, the professional lawyer considers that the Prosecutor must summon Rafael Correa to explain how he got that information and, above all, who or who leaked it. Acosta even proposes that he be prohibited from leaving the country to the former president to appear in this case.
How did you take these statements from Rafael Correa?
He comments that he even knows the names of the people who put the car bomb … I was shocked, surprised and outraged by these statements (…). I will draw two parts of the statement that have caused this state of mind. The first is that he says that information has been passed to him ‘high instances of the Government’, then it means that there are still people who have contact with him. The other is that he even knows the names of the people who put the car bomb and who warned the neighborhood.
How to analyze both statements?
How is it possible that high levels of government, as the economist Correa says in his statements, have passed this information and have not done so with the President of the Republic, Lenin Moreno?
They avoided that the President knows at first hand the particularities of this event. With this behavior they prevent or try to prevent immediate, timely measures being taken, committing a tactic of sabotage to the State’s security structure. Because if the President and / or the instances of the Office of the Prosecutor or the National Police immediately knew these matters that have been reported to the former president, they could have taken more opportune measures to guarantee the lives of the Ecuadorians, those of San Lorenzo and mainly to those of the border provinces.
And about the knowledge of the names of those involved?
Now, how is it possible that the former president of the Republic, with all the responsibilities he had and those he has now as former president, has not given this information or immediately informed the National Government, the Prosecutor’s Office or the Police of the names of the people who left the car bomb? According to Correa, this information was given to him by ‘high levels of government’ that have contact with him. So it is necessary to ask ourselves, who are those “high instances of the Government” that are hiding the information?
What measures should be taken immediately?
The Prosecutor’s Office, without even having a complaint, should summon Mr. Correa -if necessary, preventing him from leaving the country to do so- in order to say what they are -identifying with names, surnames and administrative positions- to those who catalog as ‘high instances of the Government’. On the other hand, give the names and surnames of those who left the car bomb that he said he knew, who gave them the information and why they did not give that information to official channels. This is not the first time that Rafael Correa boasts of having ‘people of confidence’ in the Government … I have no doubt that former President Correa has people of his confidence occupying positions of medium, high and low level in this Government. But there arises the obligation of our current president, Lenin Moreno, to identify those people to deprive them of the performance in positions and to put valuable people, of their trust, who do exist in Ecuador.
How do you evaluate the work of Government and Justice instances in this attack?
Prosecutor’s office acts at the time it should, because it acts after the events occur (…). But he needs a little more reaction with things like the ones we’ve talked about. Someone says that he knows the names of those involved, someone says that they have informed him of high figures, then immediately the Prosecutor has to say come here sir, you will not be able to leave the country while he appears to render a version to tell me who these are ‘natos’.
And about the work of the intelligence services in this case?
On the subject of intelligence, the country has been reactive. Things have happened and he’s just scared trying to determine how things have been. Rather, Colombia was the one that informed us that it was a narco-guerrilla. It seems to me right that the Prosecutor, seeing this flaw in the intelligence tasks, has asked that experts come from both Colombia and the United States (FBI) to make the research more agile, more technical, more scientific. (I)
