This afternoon the Attorney General’s Office on behalf of the Ecuadorian State presented in the National Court of Justice (CNJ) a document to be incorporated as a private prosecutor in the 2012-2016 Bribes case. This request is in addition to the one already submitted by former César Montúfar and the researcher Fernando Villavicencio.
The private accusation led by prosecutor Iñigo Salvador for the bribery offense goes against former president Rafael Correa, his former vice president Jorge Glas, his former legal secretary Alexis Mera and his former ministers María Duarte, Walter Solis, Vinicio Alvarado, and current assemblywoman Viviana Bonilla .
The prosecution’s indictment includes businessmen who are part of the list of 26 prosecuted in the case in which the Prosecutor’s Office investigates crimes such as bribery, illicit association and influence peddling.
According to the document presented at the CNJ, evidence of the crime has been found through a “well-designed corruption scheme.” The bribes would have been received by the accused public officials and apparently “administered by them for various purposes, directly benefiting the Alliance Country (AP) movement and a select group of their supporters.”
From the Attorney General’s Office it is believed that the funds received were used in electoral candidacies to pay for services provided in sectional and national political campaigns, personal loans and even birthdays of then President Correa or several of his closest collaborators.
Meanwhile, the Prosecutor’s Office continues to collect versions of suppliers that confirm that they performed work for PA campaigns, but those who paid for those services were State contractor companies that had nothing to do with the official movement.
Pablo Aguinaga Buendía, in his version rendered in the Prosecutor’s Office, on August 26, said he was hired by the Uma company to provide the services of jingles and radio wedges. Uma was the agency that worked for the Correa government and was very close to Vinicio Alvarado, former secretary of Correa and today prosecuted in the Bribes case.
Aguinaga Buendía said that once the work was finished and it was approved, a Uma production company asked them that for the two works carried out, the invoices come out in the name of a third company. He would have been given the company data and they proceeded to issue the invoices for the jingle “Todo Todito” and the song “Revolution With Everything” for AP.
The payments would have been made without problem and were made by check, Aguinaga Buendía recalled.
To the version of Aguinaga Buendía is added the one delivered by Luis Antonio Aleaga, also taken by the Prosecutor’s Office on August 26. Among other things, Alega, a producer who made videos for the 2013 campaign of the then candidate Viviana Bonilla, recalled that she made an audiovisual product for Bonilla, who used to work for the mayor of Guayaquil.
The version of Alega arrives once the Prosecutor asked for specific information on invoices that would have been canceled in 2014 to his company Urbana Films by the company SK Engineering. The contact for the job for Bonilla’s candidacy would have been made by the Creational company, which later explained the work they were going to do and who would cancel the product to them would be the SK Engineering company.
Creacional is a company that also has a relationship with Vinicio Alvarado, a former public official who, according to Alega, was the communication consultant for the work he did for Bonilla. The producer said he knew Alvarado, because he knew he was one of the partners of the Creational company that contacted them.
Source: https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2019/08/28/nota/7492872/procuraduria-presento-acusacion-particular-contra-rafael-correa
