Mahuad Could Go To Prison For Bank Holiday

Jamil Mahuad

Former Ecuadorian President Jamil Mahuad (1998-2000), who is asylum in the U.S., faces a custody order because of the issuance of two decrees ordering the freezing and banking holiday in 1999.

The accusers, former socialist MP Victor Granda and Anti-Corruption Commission former vocal Jorge Rodriguez managed to revive the case after five years. 14,000 new sheets presented evidence of the crime of embezzlement of public funds, which does not prescribe.

Mahuad was judged by the signing of decrees, legal figure that was not criminalized in the Penal Code, so that former judges of the Supreme Court released Mahuad provisionally when they found no crime. The decision of the president of the Second Criminal Chamber of the National Court today resulted in the dismissal of Ana Lucia Armijos, former Minister of Finance in Mahuad’s regime and the lifting of the remand order for the ex president in August 2010.

Mahuad is now facing a new trial, the judge of the Second Criminal Chamber of the National Court, Enrique Pacheco, determined the existence of embezzlement and that the trial records have serious presumptions of Mahuad’s liability. Under the Criminal Code of 1983, which handled this case, the crime of embezzlement is punishable by imprisonment of four to eight years.

Pacheco also ordered a psychiatric evaluation of the personality of Mahuad, which have to be done by medical experts of the Judicial Police, they must submit its report within 15 days. He also ordered the seizure of Mahuad’s goods and his capture through International Interpol.

(MS)