Ecuador: Justice ratifies sentence of 8 years in prison for former President Rafael Correa

Correa, Glas and more sentenced to prison for Odebrecht case 2:08

(CNN Spanish) - The Court of the National Court of Justice of Ecuador denied the appeal filed by the defense of former President Rafael Correa and others sentenced in the Bribery case 2012-2016 and ratified the sentence for the crime of bribery to 8 years of prison.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, during those four years of the Correa government, a criminal corruption structure was set up to receive undue contributions to the Alianza País political movement by Odebrecht and other companies in exchange for the award of millionaire contracts. Officials from the Odebrecht company were not prosecuted in this case, which represented constant claims by former President Correa to the judicial process.

After the ratification of the sentence, the attorney general Diana Salazar wrote on her Twitter account that each of the appeals was distorted and that therefore the court ratified the sentence against 18 convicts and partially modified the sentence of two others.

Also on Twitter, former President Rafael Correa described the decision as “mamarrachado”. He recalled the names of the judges who intervened in the trial and appeal stages and assured that "sooner rather than later they will have to respond."

During the judicial process, Correa, who has lived in Belgium since July 2017, told CNN that he never spoke - not even by phone - with someone from Odebrecht and that "as president, the unwritten rule was that it never had to do with financing campaign, because we knew very well that it was very easy to distort anything, "insisted the former president.

The Odebrecht company and the Ecuadorian government tried - through a negotiating table with various authorities in 2019 - to reach an agreement for a comprehensive reparation to the Ecuadorian State for the damages caused to the country, but in May of this year the State Attorney's Office - who was also an accusing party in the bribery case 2012-2016 reported that the dialogues ended due to an alleged attempt by the company to coerce or coerce the Ecuadorian State.

During the dialogues in various public statements, Felix Martins, director of Odebrecht, indicated that the company sought to regain the confidence of Ecuador through the recognition of errors, cooperation with justice and the repair of damages. During the trial of the bribery case 2012-2016, several Odebrecht officials gave versions at the request of the Prosecutor's Office.

President Lenín Moreno - who leads the Alianza País movement to which Correa belonged - has repeatedly said that the ex-president should return to the country to account for justice.

Rafael Correa