Eleven days after the disappearance of lawyer María Belén Bernal was reported in Quito, after entering a training school of the National Police of Ecuador, the government made the discovery of the lifeless body official.
Paradoxically, the announcement was made in the same Police High School where the events occurred, minutes after the president, Guillermo Lasso, advanced the information from New York, where he participates in the United Nations General Assembly.
The Minister of the Interior, Patricio Carrillo, announced at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon that there is a 99.9% probability that the body found belongs to the victim, but he is still awaiting the results that throw the forensic study.
Carrillo, who was accompanied by Police Commander General Fausto Salinas, announced that they found the body on the Casitagua hill, very close to the police school, in an inhospitable area.
The official asserted that the finding was achieved thanks to the technical work of the National Police in the last few hours. In addition, because of the state of decomposition of the body, because of the plastic wrappers found, because of the clothing and because of a tattoo that was identified by a relative.
“The national government, the Ministry of the Interior, apologizes to Ecuadorian society, especially to the family, and offers a public apology to the family of María Belén and especially to her mother, Elizabeth Otavalo, and her grandson, Isaac, to women, to Ecuadorian society, because this reprehensible fact has brought us to shame and has brought us deep pain,” Carrillo said.
The Minister of the Interior, a retired Police General, also confirmed that the search for the main suspect, Lieutenant Germán Cáceres, husband of lawyer Bernal, continues.
“We are not going to rest until we find the person responsible for this painful act (…) and we are going to get him out from under the stones, we are not going to rest until this happens“he sentenced.
The disappearance of the professional, who was 34 years old, was denounced by her mother, Elizabeth Otavalo, hours after the lawyer went to the Superior Police School, early on Sunday, September 11, to look for Cáceres, who worked there as a cadet instructor.
Thereafter, the case generated a stir and became a cause of national concern.
The search, which did not take place immediately, increased criticism of the police institution. To this was added the absence of the Minister of the Interior during the first days of disappearance, because he was abroad, attending to personal matters.
Coincidentally, at the same time as the announcement about the discovery of the body, a sit-in was called by organizations for the defense of women’s rights to demand the truth from the government in this case.
The mother of the murdered lawyer demanded justice from the President of the Republic, through the social network Twitter.
“This is a crime that happened at the Superior Police School. My daughter was taken from me, at the hands of a fugitive Police servant. I ask the universities for support in legal medical examinations. I need to know the truth,” Otavalo said.
In addition to Lieutenant Cáceres, 12 members of the National Police are involved, of various degrees, who are currently suspended, the authorities reported. The National Police, at the request of the Minister of the Interior, plans to request their link to the process and that preventive detention be ordered.
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