The prosecutor of Ecuador, Diana Salazar, already has in her hands the judicial file against the vice president, Verónica Abad, and has carried out the first steps to speed up the process. She has asked the National Court of Justice to assign her a day and time to join the case that was opened in March against the second president. Furthermore, she has changed the crime. Abad will not be prosecuted for offering influence peddling, which motivated the investigation from the beginning, but for concussion; That is, she will be accused of using her position to demand payment from another person in exchange for a job. With this change, Abad could not only be criminally prosecuted, but also opens the possibility for the Assembly to initiate a political trial against her and disqualify her from any public office.
The case was named by the Prosecutor’s Office as Baby, because the only person involved was the second president’s son, Sebastián Barreiro Abad. According to the investigation by the prosecutor who collected the first evidence, the crime took place in a suite in a hotel in the capital. The complainant is a young communicator Rommel P., who attended the meeting scheduled one night in the hotel suite. Barreiro and Daniel R., an advisor to the vice president, were waiting for him. The meeting was to negotiate the position of communication coordinator in the Vice Presidency of the Republic. The coordinator position has a salary of $3,200, but he was offered $1,200. In the end they closed the deal for 1,500 and the difference had to be delivered in cash and into the hands of the second president’s son. To guarantee monthly payments, according to the complainant, they forced him to sign a bill of exchange for $30,000. Rommel signed.
In the expanded version, the complainant has assured that the vice president was aware of everything, and showed the chats of their conversations. The investigation accumulates at least nine testimonies from different witnesses, from hotel employees to officials of the Vice Presidency, among them that of the former secretary who said that Abad arranged for the hiring of Rommel P. for the position of communications coordinator.
To obtain evidence, prosecutor Salazar has asked the National Court of Justice for authorization to extract and analyze the information from Rommel P.’s mobile phone, where she assures that the conversations with the second president are held. Salazar has also requested that both Abad and his advisor Daniel R. give her version on June 13. They will do so electronically from the Ecuadorian Embassy in Tel Aviv, where the vice president was sent as an ambassador of peace in Israel’s war against Palestine.
But to continue with the judicial process against the vice president, the judges must request authorization from the Assembly, which must approve it with at least 92 votes of the legislators. If the Legislature does not approve the authorization, Abad will not be able to be criminally prosecuted. But with the change from crime to concussion, Ella Abad would not only face a possible criminal trial, but also a political one. The Constitution of Ecuador establishes three causes for the Assembly to take the president or vice president to the bench of the Plenary: for crimes against the security of the State, crimes of genocide, torture, forced disappearance of people, kidnapping or homicide for political reasons and for concussion, bribery, embezzlement or illicit enrichment.
It is not the first time that a possible impeachment trial against the second president has been aired in the halls of parliament, but at that time they had no grounds to propose it. The impeachment process requires an accuser and the support of 46 signatures. The Government has insured at least 34 assembly members. Now the vice president’s future is in the Assembly and above all in the hands of the Citizen Revolution, Rafael Correa’s political movement, which she has criticized and accused of dismantling the country in the 10 years that he governed. Abad also opposed from the beginning the political pact that Noboa negotiated with Correismo to govern without obstacles in Congress, an agreement with which he managed to pass five urgent economic laws and which ended after ordering forced entry into the Mexican Embassy in Quito to capture Jorge Glas.
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