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Gabela report crucial to clarify murder under Correa’s government
Posted On 06 Aug 2018
Ecuadornews:
The lifting of confidentiality to the Argentine expert Roberto Meza, ordered by President Lenin Moreno, does not contribute much to the clarification of the assassination of General Jorge Gabela in 2010, which could splash the government of Rafael Correa.
The death of the ex-Chief of the Air Force, who had denounced corruption in a purchase of Dhruv Indian helicopters, is another controversial case that concerns the Ecuadorian political class, including several members and collaborators of the Executive of the former president who governed between 2007 and 2017.
Ramiro Román, lawyer of Patricia Ochoa, widow of Gabela, is sure that this is a case of human rights and not of “common delinquency” as established after the crime of the military in December 2010, when he was found dead in the lobby of his house, supposedly assassinated by thieves.
In statements to Efe, the lawyer believes that the decision of President Moreno this week to lift the secrecy on the contract with the expert and restrictions of confidentiality, has begun to “correct” the human right to the truth.
But it requires, in addition, the documentation in the hands of the authorities because Meza assures that, by one of the clauses of the contract, he was not authorized to keep copies of the expertise.
In that sense, what the Gabela family demands is that confidentiality be lifted also “over all documentation”, especially about the Comptroller’s investigations into the purchase of helicopters, which for him is the cornerstone of the inquiry into what which he calls “execution of General Gabela”.
“The annex of the Dhruv is very important, because names and surnames appear and, if the motive was that, we must know what happened,” added the lawyer, who leads other controversial cases in Ecuador.
In addition, Roman asks that the expert Meza -who prepared a report on the Gabela case with a conclusively curiously lost part- should return to the country to reveal the conclusions of his investigation.
The Occasional Commission of the National Assembly investigating the case reported on Friday of its intention to call Correa to give testimony, after former Security Coordinator Fernando Cordero gave his version and established a connection between the murder and the helicopters.
Cordero said that all the material of the investigation was of the knowledge of the Presidency.
Román also believes that a reconstruction of the facts and new expert opinions must be given.
“This is just beginning (…) This is a case of human rights,” he remarked, noting that in an initial investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office “the man who killed General Gabela, who was also killed, never appeared.”
In this process, the expert Meza, the former ministers who formed part of the Interinstitutional Committee that inquired about the case and even the former legal secretary of the Presidency in the time of Correa, Alexis Mera, should appear in this process, added the lawyer.
With this new inquiry, another reconstruction of the facts and new expert opinions is agreed by the widow of Gabela, who assured in statements to Efe that he has waited more than seven years to know the truth.
“The concern here is the disappearance of the documentation” on the report that expert Meza made, key in the case, said Ochoa and said that currently the important thing is to reconstruct this case in its entirety.
The widow also points to former president Correa and says that he must show his face for ordering the investigation of the crime of the general, but not revealed the content of the final report of the investigation.
In June 2015, Correa confirmed that he had received the report but “he did not hand it over to the family”, and therefore “must show his face because he failed to comply with his own decree” in the sense that he should make the result of the inquiry public.
In addition, the fact that an Inter-Institutional Committee was formed to assist in the investigation and deal with the case, an organization composed of high authorities and ministers at the time and that the key documents do not appear, is a matter of concern for the Gabela family.
“What kind of officials did Ecuador have to investigate the case of the murder of a human being?” The widow asked herself indignantly.
“What the Gabela family wants is the truth … after more than seven years of imploring justice,” added Ochoa, who believes that “delayed justice is not justice.” (I)
