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The Attorney General of Ecuador assures that investigation of the kidnapping of the EL COMERCIO team will continue
Posted On 12 Dec 2018
Ecuadornews:
The Ecuadorian State assumes to investigate the kidnapping of the press team of EL COMERCIO, perpetrated on March 26, 2018 on the northern border. This was statedby the Attorney General’s Office, in a press release, on Tuesday, December 11,2018. In a bulletin, the Attorney General’s Office assured that “once responsibilities are determined in this investigation, the Ecuadorian State will adopt the necessary measures so that the responsible, regardless of whether they are individuals or state agents, are judged and punished in accordance with the law. “
In the statement, the state entity referred to the Special Monitoring Team (ESE)formed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which ordered the application of precautionary measures.
The ESE raises information in Ecuador and in Colombia, where the facts that led to the murder of the three members of the journalism team are investigated: Efraín Segarra, Javier Ortega and Paúl Rivas. “The ESE is a support mechanism whose final contribution to the State will be a report in which the observations and recommendations of the case will be made, in which the conclusion of the ESE in no way implies the closing of the criminal investigations that are being carried out so much in Ecuador as Colombia, in which all those responsible for the kidnapping and murder of our compatriots must be determined, “said the Attorney General’s Office, which has insisted on requesting the IACHR to lift the precautionary measures it issued on April 12, 2018 in favor of Javier Ortega, Efraín Segarra and Paúl Rivas.
Ricardo Rivas, brother of Paúl Rivas, talks about the State’s request to file the precautionary measures issued against Ecuador and Colombia, for the kidnapping of the journalistic team of newspaper EL COMERCIO.
Next,the transcript of the statement from the Attorney General’s Office: ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE RATIFIES COMMITMENT OF THE STATE IN THE INVESTIGATION OF THE SEQUESTRATION OF JOURNALISM EQUIPMENT OF THE TRADE
On December 6, 2018 the public hearing was held on the precautionary measuresMC-309 18 Ref Efraín Segarra and others, in the city of Washington DC, United States, headquarters of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
In the diligence, the State Attorney General reaffirmed the state’s commitment to investigate the events that occurred with members of the newspaper El Comercio, who were kidnapped and murdered by the Olivier Sinisterra group. The Attorney General of the State emphasized that, once responsibilities are determined inthis investigation, the Ecuadorian State will adopt the necessary measures so that those responsible, regardless of whether they are individuals or state agents, are judged and punished as determined by the law.
In this regard, it should be noted that the creation of the Special Monitoring Team (ESE) was never intended as a replacement for the work of the Office of the Prosecutor. The ESE is a support mechanism whose final contribution to the State will be a report in which the observations and recommendations of the case will be made.
As such, the conclusion of the ESE in no way implies the closure of the criminal investigations that are being carried out both in Ecuador and Colombia, inwhich all those responsible for the kidnapping and murder of our compatriotsmust be determined.
Justas lifting precautionary measures does not mean the file of the investigative process that the Prosecutor’s Office has, which will continue with the process that corresponds to it. The ESE is an exceptional mechanism constituted by the request and insistence of the Ecuadorian State.
Thus,on July 17, 2018, by Resolution No. 54/2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights defined the mandate of the Special Monitoring Team, stating that its general objective is: “to continue monitoring the component of investigating the facts that gave rise to the adoption of the precautionary measures granted MC-309-18. “1 The period of functions of the ESE under the provisions of Resolution No. 54/2018 is established with a duration of six months, which would conclude on December 31, 2018. (I)
