Rafael Correa was accused as the author of the plagiarism of Fernando Balda

Ecuadornews:

The Attorney General, Paúl Pérez, identified former President Rafael Correa as the author of the offenses of conspiracy and kidnapping of Fernando Balda. National judge Daniella Camacho was asked to call him to trial and also ratify the prison order against him, forbid him to sell or transfer his assets and freeze his accounts.

Last March, when the judicial process began, Correa donated his house in Quito to his minor son. Perez explained – just before announcing his opinion – the political context of the kidnapping of Balda. “Here in Ecuador, you could not think differently. This has not been the only case; here there was a persecution even of people of the National Court. That was the beautiful Constitutional State of Law: dead letter! “. Immediately the murmurs of the audience that yesterday copied the auditorium of the National Court of Justice, where the trial preparatory hearing took place, were heard.

This assertion, according to the Prosecutor, was based on the declassified documents of the National Intelligence Secretariat (Senain) regarding the operation of Guayacán or Wilson, as identified in the plan for the kidnapping of Balda, which was executed in August 2012 , in Bogota Colombia). Perez said that among the reserved documents were photographic albums and reports of the follow-ups that were made against the ex-legislator, before and after his kidnapping, even when he had already been deported to Ecuador and held in a penitentiary.

“The people who visited him in prison were being watched.” He added: “The chain of command of these operations began with the then President Correa.”

The documents of the Senain are one of the 28 evidences that the investigator presented against the former president before the judge in charge of the case. Minutes later he made the same accusation and request of appeal to trial for the other defendants in this case: Pablo Romero, former chief of the Senain, and police officers Raúl Chicaiza and Diana Falcón.

These two last ones are serving a preventive sentence in Quito and, currently, they are in the program of Protection for Victims and Witnesses, after having declared that Correa ordered the kidnapping. Yesterday, Diego Chimbo, lawyer of the two policemen, indicated that Falcón’s protection will be increased, after the visit made by Assemblywoman Sofía Espín and Yadira Cadena, a lawyer who works with Caupolicán Ochoa, defender of Correa.

The visit to the prison of Quito took place on Monday, a day before the National Court reinstated the hearing of the four defendants. According to Chimbo, the legislator would have asked her client to change her version and said that she was pressured by the Attorney General. This in exchange for writing asylum in Belgium and protection of the UN.

“We see a legislator instigating someone to deceive justice, to deceive the judge,” said the defender. He announced that he will file a complaint against the legislator for influence peddling and for allegedly encouraging procedural fraud. He said that his other client, Chicaiza, has also received visits in which he is suggested to change his version.

He did not specify what people. After this complaint was made public, Espin confirmed that he did visit the agent. “Yes. Yesterday I went to where she is, to see the conditions she is in. ” On his side, Caupolicán Ochoa said: “The fact that a defendant receives a visit is not a crime for anyone. I do not know the nature of that conversation … I am sorry for his situation, when there is not a single test against him and he is held hostage, only for the purpose of incriminating a third person.”

According to the lawyer, the prosecution has no evidence against Correa and also, for him, the Prosecutor General’s Office forced the accused police to plead guilty. In a press conference, Ochoa was repeatedly consulted about his working relationship with Yadira Cadena, the woman who accompanied Espin to the visit, but avoided responding. Finally, after the insistence of the journalists, he said: “the lady is a lawyer in free exercise”. Hours before, the woman was seen in the audience of the Court, in the company of people close to the correísmo. It was located in the exclusive place of the defendants, behind Ochoa. (I)

Source: https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/rafaelcorrea-acusado-autorplagio-secuestrobalda-audiencia.html