The former president convicted of corruption is a fugitive in Belgium where he was granted political asylum
By
Yalilé LoaizaFrom Quito
The former president of Ecuador Rafael Correa, in a file photograph. EFE/José Méndez
This Friday, May 27, 2022, the National Court of Justice decided to send a request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador to proceed with the extradition of former president Rafael Correa, sentenced for corruption offences.
This extradition process began in April 2022 when the president of The National Court, Iván Saquicela, issued this order. immediately The file was sent to an accredited expert so that it could be correctly translated into French, the official language of the Kingdom of Belgium, the country where Correa currently resides as a fugitive from Ecuadorian justice.
Saquicela said that this request for the extradition of the former president of Ecuador is a request based on objective and legal arguments. This was stated on Friday, April 22. He added that as president of the highest court of justice in the country he has the competence to make this request. “My work is limited to an eminently technical-legal and not a political aspect”, Saquicela indicated at the time.
The administrative appeal against the Foreign Ministry of EcuadorIt is based on the existence of the enforceable sentence, legitimately issued by the highest courts of justice in Ecuador and which establishes criminal sanctions against former President Rafael Correa for leading a corruption scheme that harmed the Ecuadorian State for millions of dollars. The case has been named by the Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office as the 2012-2016 Bribery case. President Saquicela confirmed that the Criminal, Corruption and Organized Crime Chamber of the National Court of Justice, through its 10 judges, ratified this conviction.
Former President Correa, who governed Ecuador for ten years, was sentenced as a direct perpetrator for instigation in that case, for which he must serve eight years in prison. Between 2012 and 2016, during Correa’s second term, senior government officials, including his then vice president Jorge Glas , received bribes from multinationals, including Odebrecht . The money was used to finance the Alianza PAIS movement, with which Correa became president in 2006.
Saquicela insisted that this request is not due to political persecution because the extradition request does not respond to ideological grounds, but to the impulse of a process that seeks to fulfill responsibilities associated with crimes of corruption legitimately established by the Ecuadorian justice system. I requested the “extradition in strict law, for a crime of bribery. I have acted with the courage that the country requires to fight against corruption, impunity and organized crime,” Saquicela explained.
It also revealed that said request is based on the Extradition Law in force in Ecuador and on the Extradition Treaty also in full force, signed between Ecuador and Belgium, in accordance with the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
< p class=”paragraph”>On April 15, the General Commissioner for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS) of Belgium confirmed that that nation had granted Correa refugee status. Since his term ended, Correa has lived in Belgium, the country where his wife, Ann Malherbede, comes from.
Christophe Marchand, Correa’s lawyer, explained that the asylum application had been launched after a legal process began in Ecuador in 2018 that related him to the alleged kidnapping of an opponent in 2012, the so-called “Balda case“.
The president of the National Court of Justice of Ecuador , Iván Saquicela, was suspended for delaying the extradition process for Rafael Correa.
However, The Council of the Judiciary of Ecuador announced last Friday, May 20, a week ago, the temporary suspension of the president of the National Court of Justice, Iván Saquicela, accused by this disciplinary body of the Judicial Function of deliberately delaying the request of extradition. Saquicela immediately warned that the suspension measure seeks impunity in a case involving former President Rafael Correa and former Vice President Jorge Glas.
The Plenary of the Council of the Judiciary issued the preventive measure of suspension for 90 days to the head of the National Court of Justice, Iván Saquicela, “for alleged very serious infraction of manifest negligence” and after the “complaint related to (an) alleged delay in (the) processing of an extradition case”, indicated the same Council of the Judiciary through its official Twitter account.
Saquicela replied on the same social network that this administrative maneuver seeks that “the extradition process of former President Rafael Correa does not prosper”, and that with this “they want impunity”. He called this suspension a “paradox.” Saquicela also revealed on April 22 that Belgium had been formally requested to extradite former president Correa, sentenced in Ecuador to 8 years in prison for bribery and 25 years of political disqualification as a result of this crime committed against the public administration.
The national judge has been criticized by various sectors of public opinion for the National Court’s delay in adopting this measure after, in September of 2020 the justice condemned Correa, and after all judicial instances were exhausted. However, Saquicela has been in charge of the National Court since February 2021.
On Monday, May 30, the decision reached by the judge who heard the protection action will be known presented by the president of the National Court of Justice to reverse the 90-day suspension that was imposed with two of three votes in the plenary session of the Council of the Judiciary, last May 20.