Former President of Ecuador Lenín Moreno rules out requesting asylum in Paraguay.
Former Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno ruled out seeking political asylum in Paraguay, where he currently resides, to escape a process initiated by his country’s Prosecutor’s Office for alleged corruption, he told AFP on Wednesday.
Source: AFP
“I don’t need to ask Paraguay for asylum,” Moreno said in Asunción.
“Couldn’t they respect my statements [judiciales] that I can do them perfectly at the Ecuadorian embassy in Asunción?”, he questioned.
The Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office requested last week house arrest for Moreno, whom he accuses, along with 36 other people, of corruption for allegedly receiving bribes from a Chinese company in exchange for the contract to build the largest hydroelectric plant in the country.
The court that bears case known as Sinohydro It resolved that the ex-president appear every fortnight before the National Court of Justice.
“I would like to go to Ecuador”, He said but indicated: “I first need a medical diagnosis that I am not going to be in danger of my life and that this is nothing more than a whim, a vanity of the authorities.”
Moreno said he had been hospitalized in Asunción twice in the last semester “with very serious danger of my life, due to the state of my disabilities.”
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“That is why I am amazed that they want to force me to return to my country to present myself every fortnight. That bustle can kill me”, observed the politician who governed Ecuador between 2017 and 2021.
According to the prosecution, thes 37 people investigated, including Moreno’s wife, daughter and brothers, they would have received bribes for 76 million dollars from the Chinese firm Sinohydro in exchange for the hydroelectric construction contract.
The prosecuting entity maintains that this is “the highest amount prosecuted for acts of corruption in Ecuador”.
Moreno, who is the Organization of American States (OAS) commissioner for disability issues, insisted that for health reasons he cannot travel.
“Because of my disability, I have had very strong internal bleeding from those sudden movements that have led me to the limit of septicemia, a generalized blood infection,” he explained.
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“I have to consult with the doctors who treat me so that they can tell me if I can travel or not, or under what conditions. They warn me that the next time I travel I have to do it in an ambulance plane, ”he declared.
since last year Moreno lives in Asunción, city where the headquarters of the OAS office for people with disabilities is located.
