armed group threatens to kill Attorney General

An armed group threatened Thursday to assassinate Ecuador’s Attorney General, Diana Salazar, and her daughter and demanded that she step down from the position from which she has prosecuted high-ranking officials, including former President Rafael Correa, for corruption.

In a video that circulates on Twitter and other social networks and in which at least six men appear with their faces covered and carrying rifles and machine guns, one of them warns: “You are about to have a birthday, I don’t want to ruin your party by killing you.” your daughter because before I kill you I make you cry and suffer”.

In accordance with the screenshot initially published by the Prosecutor’s Office, the threat reached Salazar’s phone at dawn on Thursday. In 2017 Salazar had also received threats while investigating the Odebrecht case, but not of this magnitude.

It cannot be tolerated that “criminal groups and their terrorist acts threaten the life of a State authority and seek control of justice institutions,” President Guillermo Lasso posted on Twitter and stressed that the State must align itself in the defense of democracy of the institutions. “My support and solidarity with the Attorney General … the police will give all the necessary protection,” he added.

That force reported that “it has arranged for the best investigation units to work together with the Prosecutor’s Office to find those responsible for these threats.”

“We cannot naturalize violence anymore, when the family of a brave Prosecutor who has faced strong cases of corruption is at stake,” said the Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata, quoted in a statement from that body. He added that security teams were activated. intelligence to work on various investigative lines and strengthen and reinforce the security of the Prosecutor and her relatives.

It’s a statement The Prosecutor’s Office rejected “any act of intimidation” and called on the public, the State and the international community “to remain vigilant against any attempt to take over this institution by any means and at any cost.”

Salazar denounced this week “desperate attempts” to remove her from office by the Council of the Judiciary, the body that administers justice, and the Council for Citizen Participation chaired by Alembert Vera, Correa’s lawyer in several corruption cases.

The first of these organizations called a meeting on Monday night to hear a disciplinary file against Salazar and a possible sanction, which did not prosper. The second has summoned her for Friday in order to hear and process a complaint for the alleged plagiarism of the official’s thesis presented by two citizen groups.

Neither the constitution nor the laws in Ecuador allow the Judiciary or the Council to oversee or sanction the Attorney General.

Germán Rodas, coordinator of the non-governmental National Anti-Corruption Commission, told The Associated Press that “there is a concerted action by some sectors to prevent the sanctioning of certain people who are linked to corruption” and called on the Prosecutor’s Office not to yield in the face of threats and continue to do your job.

Salazar maintains that the persecution against him is promoted by those who seek impunity, are deprived of liberty or fugitives from justice in reference to Correa, his former vice president Jorge Glas, recently released from prison for corruption cases; the imprisoned former state comptroller, Pablo Celi; the former Ombudsman, Freddy Carrión, also in prison for sexual abuse and other senior officials of the Correa government (2007-2017) prosecuted during his administration as head of the Attorney General’s Office.

Correa posted on his Twitter account that “this woman (Salazar) is crazy. There is little left ”, among other remarks to disqualify her.

Salazar has one year and 10 months left to finish his term.

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