Can President Lasso with the multiple crises?
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(CNN Spanish) -
The Ecuadorian Assembly unanimously censured former comptroller Pablo Celi on Monday for alleged non-compliance with functions, alleged responsibility for the fading of glosses (unjustified use of resources) and for being the subject of a process carried out by criminal justice .
With the censorship in the impeachment, Celi will not be able to hold public office in the next two years.
His judicial situation, on the other hand, must be defined in the organized crime trial that will determine if he is sentenced or not and if he continues in prison.
Celi has been in preventive prison since April this year, after being detained along with other people during operations led by the Prosecutor's Office, which is prosecuting him for the crime of organized crime.
The arguments in the Assembly
During his defense before the plenary session of the Assembly, Celi said that he is a “criminal of conscience”, that the preventive detention against him is an “abusive act” and that his right to legitimate defense was violated in a political trial process. , which he described as a "show".
Celi insisted that during his administration in charge of the Comptroller's Office there was a fight against corruption and that now the legislators want to “dismantle” the institution with impeachment.
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During the process, 18 assembly members intervened, who agreed that Celi failed to fulfill his duties and agreed to forward the Assembly's file to the Prosecutor's Office, so that the latter could include it in the criminal investigation that it is carrying out.
Juan Cristóbal Lloret, one of the legislators interpellating in the political trial for the UNES movement, said that, with this decision, the Assembly begins "the re-founding of a Comptroller's Office of honest and capable people, as Ecuadorians characterize themselves."
For his part, Concertación legislator Fernando Villavicencio indicated that Celi's impeachment revealed an "unprecedented corruption plot" and a "bribery industry" in Ecuador.
Prior to the impeachment, CNN contacted Marcelo Ron, Celi's lawyer, who said the process suffered from "many flaws" and violated "constitutional principles."
According to Ron, the impeachment trial started by prejudging Celi to "defuse conflicts between legislators and cover up the quarrels between them."
At the end of July, precisely when he went before the Legislative Power, Pablo Celi said that the process against him has no basis, that from his position he could not direct audits or resolutions and that he has not interfered in other functions of the State to benefit or benefit To thirds.
Celi denied having received money or favors in exchange for decisions of the institution and rejected the existence of a corruption structure.
In early July, Carlos Riofrío replaced Pablo Celi as State Comptroller, a position that Celi had held on an interim basis since June 2017.
The background to the investigation on Celi
Regarding the criminal process against Celi, the Prosecutor's Office reported that it investigated for a year and a half an alleged corruption structure, which operated to demand undue payments in exchange for the disappearance of glosses, and payments for contracts signed by the state oil company Petroecuador and other companies, between 2017 and 2020. The leaders of this structure, according to the Prosecutor's Office, held high public positions.
Attorney General Diana Salazar informed the Assembly that there are also 18 investigations against former comptroller Pablo Celi for possible concussion, influence peddling, procedural fraud, embezzlement and others.
He added that the six glosses vanished by the alleged Celi order would have represented US $ 13 million between 2017 and 2020. These are glosses from a company from which a relative of the former comptroller would have requested and received money.
Regarding the allegations of the Prosecutor's Office, Celi's lawyer told CNN that there is nothing against the ex-comptroller that justifies that he has received money or that he has spoken with those involved to influence or receive bribes in exchange for favors.