The defense of Danilo Carrerabrother-in-law of the former Ecuadorian president Guillermo Lassodid not appear at the hearing to support the appeal to house arrest, imposed in a case that investigates an alleged corruption plot in public companies.
The defense argued that, “despite the series of requests made in legitimate law”, it has not been allowed to have the possibility of adequately exercising the right to defense.
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He noted that last Friday they requested to postpone the hearing, a request that was denied that same day.
“The deferral was important to analyze the 345 bodies in the file. Something that Judge Renán Andrade Castillo, who ordered my client’s arrest, claims he did in two hours. Strange thing because the file was left in the courtroom: to say that the judge analyzed the file is just a euphemism or a gross lie,” said lawyer Calixto Vallejo in a statement.
He added that at the hearing to formulate charges, the Prosecutor’s Office “did not present a single valid indication“against Carrera,”beyond edited and worthless audios, or simple copies of papers without a signature or any value, which the Prosecutor’s Office whimsically calls ’emails’”.
According to the lawyer, “Audios and voices were shown that are attributed to the defendants, without there being an expert that has compared the voices.”
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House arrest
On November 24, after a long hearing to formulate charges, a judge accepted the petition of the Public ministry that Carrera remains under house arrest and does not enter provisional prison for being over 65 years old, a measure that he did order for three other defendants, including the former president of Coordinating Company of Public Companies (EMCO), Hernán Luque.
In turn, four other people prosecuted for this case were in conditional freedomwith the obligation to appear periodically before the judicial authorities while the case remains open.
For the Prosecutor’s Office, Career “he would have been the leader of the criminal structure along with Ruben Chérres”, a friend of his who was murdered after a police report was revealed investigating his alleged links with a drug trafficking mafia.
“Both, in a planned manner, would have sought to obtain undue economic benefits using their close position with politics, interfering in public institutions such as the National Electricity Corporation (Cnel), BanEcuador and the National Customs Service,” according to the Public Ministry.
Meanwhile, Luque “he would have abused his functions by establishing a structure of systematic corruption in the board of directors of the public company Cnel”according to the Prosecutor’s file.
Among the evidence presented for the accusation is a statement from a former manager of a public company who knew about the contracts signed and executed by the members of this alleged plot.
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Audience changes
In the so-called case “Meeting”, the hearing to formulate charges against Carrera and the other seven defendants was held one day after Lasso handed over power to Daniel Noboa.
The hearing was initially scheduled for October 25, but was postponed on the first occasion to November 16 at the request of the defense of some of the defendants, because a few hours before the Public ministry had added the case to the file ““Lion of Troy”on the alleged links of Cherres with a drug trafficking mafia.
Then, the Prosecutor’s Office requested that one more person be summoned for the charging hearing, prompting a change of the hearing date to December 14 and 15, before changing it again to November 24.
