Since
coming to power last May, President Lenin Moreno – a handpicked
successor of Correa – has fought to remove any trace of Correa’s
influence from the ruling party the charismatic leftist once led.
by
Elliott Gabriel
Three
months after an Ecuadorian court requested that Interpol issue a “red
alert” to detain, imprison, and extradite former Ecuadorian
president Rafael Correa, the former head of state remains free and
has continued to wage his legal defense against charges emanating
from officials in the government of President Lenin Moreno.
According
to Correa’s legal team, this will remain the case after Interpol
suspended the Andean nation’s extradition request in an
“exceptional” manner, having considered the merits of his defense
argument, which maintains that the prosecution of Correa on charges
of conspiracy and kidnapping are of a politicized nature.
In July,
Ecuadorian Attorney General Paul Perez issued an international
request that Correa, 55, be placed in preventive detention and
extradited for not appearing at the Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office
to face a trial related to his alleged role in the attempted
abduction of former opposition legislator Fernando Balda. The
ex-deputy, Balda, had escaped to neighboring Colombia in 2012
following his conviction for slander against the Ecuadorian head of
state.
Correa,
who lives in his wife’s home country of Belgium, has denied the
charge and sees the process as a “farce” and as “lawfare” —
or the politicization of the judiciary and a continuation of
President Moreno’s campaign to tarnish his image and prevent him
from remaining involved in his country’s political future.
Earlier
this week, the economist’s legal defense team indicated that
Interpol rejected the “red alert” after examining a dossier sent
by Correa’s defense to the organization’s headquarters in France.
“The
previous rulers are being prosecuted as a means to remove them from
the political arena,” attorney Christophe Marchand told
reporters. It remains yet to be seen whether the Commission for the
Control of Interpol’s Files will allow Ecuador’s lawsuit against
Correa to continue on an international level.
However,
pretrial hearings for the case are due to continue in Ecuador on
Friday following delays earlier this week, when the prosecution’s
case materials were found to be unfit for presentation to the court
owing to technical errors.
The
former president’s legal-defense team has expressed suspicion about
the delay and incredulity over the shambolic nature of the legal
proceedings, while speculating about whether the scrutiny of
international observers caused an intentional delay of the court
date.
“The
hearing continues Friday afternoon and the international observers
leave Friday morning. I think it is clear what we are facing, worse
still with the shameful behavior of the general attorney,”
Correa noted on Twitter.
If the
charges against Correa are sustained by Attorney General Perez,
Correa could face a jail sentence of up to nine years.
Antonio
Ingroia — Italian journalist, former judge and lawyer on Correa’s
defense team — told Sputnik Mundo that the lack of evidence in the
case shows the fraudulent and “surreal” nature of the arrest
warrant against Correa and his tenuous connection to the Balda
abduction, which Ingroia sees as “literally invented and lacking
the slightest evidence.”
The
“betrayal” continues
Since
coming to power last May, President Lenin Moreno – a handpicked
successor of Correa – has fought to remove any trace of Correa’s
influence from the ruling party the charismatic leftist once led.
Moreno’s
ascent to the presidency was largely due to the continued popularity
of his predecessor’s decade-long legacy of social development
programs meant to end the “banana republic” nature of Ecuador’s
political culture and economy.
However,
since splitting with his former mentor, Moreno has embraced former
opposition leaders; deposed and jailed his own vice president and
Correa ally, Jorge Glas; replaced a moderate distrust for Washington
and an independent foreign policy with all-out reintegration into the
pro-United States fold; and torn apart the left-leaning PAIS Alliance
party, which has ruled the country since Correa was voted into office
in 2006.
In
February, Ecuadorians backed a controversial referendum, supported to
the hilt by state resources, that reimposed presidential term limits,
potentially barring Correa from ever returning to political power on
a national level.
Moreno
has also stripped Correa of any right to enjoy the protection of
Ecuadorian state security forces, a privilege typically granted to
former heads of state in the South American country. Correa sees such
measures as indicative of Quito’s desire to see him either killed
or imprisoned.
“Betrayal
can only happen between friends,” the former leader told Jornal
do Brasil Sunday in reference to his former vice president,
adding: “In the past, Moreno said that my government was the
best in the world, that I was the best president of all, but now I am
a thief, authoritarian, murderer, kidnapper, repressor, corrupt. It’s
complete hypocrisy.”
The
regional trend of lawfare continues unabated
The
campaign to persecute Correa has led to the widespread use of the
word lawfare in media outlets across Latin America in relation to the
continent’s right wing using legal processes for the sake of
stripping political opponents of their legitimacy and popular support
through exaggerated or false accusations of corruption, dirty
dealing, and graft.
Correa
and other critics have also pointed to the ongoing persecution of
former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and
Brazil’s Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva as proof of an attempt by
the United States and regional right-wing elites to exact revenge on
the wave of leaders and popular movements that came to power in the
2000s as part of a trend dubbed “socialism of the 21st-century.”
Ecuadorian
deputy to the Andean Parliament Pamela Aguirre told NODAL news in an
interview Friday that the Ecuadorian state has been rendered nearly
non-functional, as the Moreno government – with the support of
large corporations and media consortiums – has unilaterally
manipulated, dissolved, or dismissed most government bodies in its
attempt to root out the legacy of the Correa administration.
“In
the face of such a situation, our democratic system hangs in the
balance,” she noted, adding: “In Ecuador, the
‘anti-corruption’ discourse has been used to make way for a
process of judicial persecution against any actors who are opposed to
the Moreno regime. It is extremely necessary to promote this fight
against corruption, but what can’t happen is that the government
takes advantage of this resource to block democratic methods used by
the opposition.”
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