Government presents documents of Venezuelan financing to Correa

Ecuadornews:

The Ecuadorian Anti-Corruption Secretary, Iván Granda, delivered to the Prosecutor’s Office on Wednesday documents that would prove the supposed financing of the Venezuelan Executive of Nicolás Maduro to a foundation of thought linked to former President Rafael Correa.

The documentation was delivered after the Acting Attorney General, Ruth Palacios, announced -according to Granda- the opening of a preliminary inquiry, as a result of the denunciation of the case made by the head of State, Lenin Moreno, recently in Chile.

Last Friday, during a summit in Santiago de Chile in which the new organization Prosur was presented, Moreno announced that “there are destabilizing attempts led by the former presidents of Ecuador and Venezuela.”

Attempts that, assured the president, involve the management of Venezuelan public resources, “to finance actions against the Ecuadorian democratic regime and the region.”

“We have come to cooperate with justice. We have provided important information that will allow the Prosecutor’s Office to carry out an investigation into the legality of the funds and what they were used for, “Granda said as she left the office of the Prosecutor’s Office in Quito, where she handed over the documentation.

According to the Presidency, the Bank of Economic and Social Development of Venezuela, Bandes, transferred $ 281,000 to the Institute of Political and Economic Thought “Eloy Alfaro”, to “feed personal accounts of former employees.”

“This Institute made transfers to accounts of Rafael Correa for a total of $ 96,200 and his former collaborators, between $ 34,000 and $ 6,000,” said the institution.

The Anticorruption Secretary considered outrageous that this money was supposedly destined precisely from Venezuela, where the population is going through a complex economic situation.

He added that the lawyer Antonio Ingroia assured that the Institute “paid for him to come to defend, to do an oversight of the case of the international kidnapping of Fernando Balda”, for which Correa, who governed Ecuador between 2007 and 2017, has been called to trial under the crime of plagiarism.

Last September, that lawyer and other lawyers appeared as observers at the Balda preparatory hearing.

The National Court of Justice called Correa and three other ex-officers, two of them now convicted, for the 2012 abduction of Balda.

The Anticorruption Secretary recalled today that the Institute had the sole purpose of establishing political thought actions, so he asked the Foreign Ministry to investigate the performance of that foundation.

Consulted by Efe on the information delivered to the Office of the Prosecutor, Granda detailed that he presented documents of the statute of creation of the foundation, its partners, activities and the use of the website.

Moreno came to power in May 2017 from the hand of Correa but, less than two months after assuming the Presidency, there were the first divergences between the two, first by the deficit left by the previous Administration and then for ideological reasons.

At the end of 2017 the Alianza País movement, of which both were part, split into two political groups.

The new government launched a campaign against corruption in the country in 2018, during which several investigations were opened to Correa.

The former president, who resides in Belgium and denies any connection to that alleged corruption, and before the announcement of the start of the investigation was willing to open their accounts.

“Good thing, madam prosecutor! What “investigation” is it? The number 24? “Correa asked cynically through his Twitter account, adding:” What you need, tell me, to open all my accounts, my assets and my taxes. ” (I)

Source: https://www.larepublica.ec/blog/politica/2019/03/27/gobierno-presenta-documentos-de-la-financiacion-venezolana-a-correa/