2 former high officials of Ecuador and 18 other people are sentenced to prison for the Metastasis case

( Spanish) – A court of the National Court of Justice of Ecuador sentenced two former senior officials to nine years and four months in prison on organized crime charges this Monday, as collaborators in the Metastasis case.

Those sentenced are the former president of the Judicial Council Wilman Terán and the former director of the Service for Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI) Pablo Ramírez. This is a case that involved former prosecutors, former judges, practicing lawyers and former judicial officials accused by the Prosecutor’s Office of operating to benefit drug trafficker Leandro Norero, murdered during a prison riot in 2022.

Another 10 former judicial and police officials received a sentence of nine years and four months in prison, while four members of the criminal structure were sentenced to seven years in prison, and for three other people the court awarded a sentence of three years and four months in prison.

The sentence of more than 10 years in prison as the direct perpetrator was for the lawyer Xavier Novillo, alias “Novita”, whom the Prosecutor’s Office accused of directing the influence network in the Judiciary and paying bribes to benefit Norero.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, when Terán served as a national judge of the National Court of Justice, he facilitated a ruling in favor of a brother of Norero in exchange for money.

Gabriel Terán, father and lawyer of the former president of the Judiciary, told several media outlets at the end of the hearing that the sentence “is an insult to human intelligence” because he considers that “it is not consistent with the evidence presented.” He added that the conviction will be the subject of a possible international lawsuit against the Ecuadorian State and insisted that his son “is innocent.”

For his part, Ramírez, as director of the SNAI, granted – according to the Prosecutor’s Office – prison favors to Norero in exchange for economic benefits and facilitated the release from prison of two members of the criminal group.

is seeking comment from the defense of Ramírez, Novillo and others convicted in this case. The defense lawyers of several of them have announced that they will appeal the conviction once the court notifies them in writing.

The Metastasis case broke out in December 2023 after a national mega-operation that achieved the arrest of former judicial and prison authorities, businessmen, lawyers, members of the public force and leaders of criminal gangs, among others, within a corruption and drug trafficking plot.

The State Attorney General, Diana Salazar, considered the Metastasis case as one of the largest in the history of Ecuador against corruption and drug trafficking. Almost a year ago Salazar said that narcopolitics has permeated the most sensitive fibers of the country.