The criminal proceedings against Alexandra Ocles, Paúl Granda and María Alejandra Vicuña have not been resolved for years.
Investigations take years. The cases involve people who held high public office. At the beginning, when the Prosecutor’s office opened each process, everything was fast. Proceedings, searches, expert reports and hearings were ordered. Later, that rate dropped and there are still no enforceable sentences.
LA HORA collected three events that generated the intervention of justice and extensive coverage in the media, but which continue to go unpunished. The criminal lawyer and professor Iván Bahamonde pointed out that the dilation of the processes generates “suspicions” in the actions of the Prosecutor’s Office and the judges.
Alexandra ocles
The case exploded in May 2020. A journalistic publication revealed that the National Secretariat for Risk Management (SNGR) signed a contract to purchase 7,000 food kits that cost $ 86 and bought for $ 150.
In the case is processed Alexandra ocles, former head of the SNGR. Their lawyer, Guido Prado, pointed out that they have already been summoned to a trial hearing for this year.
Last November the first problem was registered. The national judge Daniella Camacho sand declared “not competent” to continue hearing the case, because Ocles did not have court jurisdiction, as the Ministers of State do. The process was sent to an ordinary judge of Guayas.
The former official was called to trial only in July 2021. Since that day, she has not been installed. There is a call to start this stage for Monday, January 18, at 09:00, however, its suspension is expected. “The Prosecutor’s Office has already requested the deferral,” Prado said.
The prosecution accused Ocles and seven other people of influence peddling. A crime that is punishable by imprisonment for three to five years, according to art. 285 of Current Penal Code (Coip). His lawyer insists on innocence and points out that it all started because of “bad journalistic information.” He also pointed out that the Comptroller’s report, which concluded a surcharge of about 30% in the failed acquisition of the kits, is erroneous and is based on information from social networks. He hopes that justice will already install the trial to “prove his innocence.”
Maria Alejandra Vicuña
An appeal court imposed a two-year prison sentence on the former vice president of Ecuador, Maria Alejandra Vicuña, on January 25, 2021. A year later, he is still free, without paying $ 173,180 and waiting for the National Court to install the cassation hearing. Once this diligence has been completed, the sentence will be executed.
Vicuña became Vice President from October 2017 to January 2018. That year she was accused of concussion (asking for money) in the Diezmos case. It all started with a report that indicated that he had received “contributions” years ago in his personal account from his collaborators., when he served as an assembly member of the correista party Country Alliance.
Juan Carlos Salazar, lawyer for the former vice president, points out that they are awaiting the summons of the Court. He believes that the delay in the diligence is due to a ruling of the Constitutional Court (CC) on the admissibility filter. In other words, the CC declared unconstitutional that cases raised to the High Court be previously assessed to be accepted.
This resulted in previous trials that were inadmissible now seeking to be dealt with by national judges.
The case of Vicuña has had more delays. In January 2019, Judge Iván Saquicela asked the Assembly to authorize the prosecution of Vicuña, since the acts investigated would have been committed when she was a legislator. The Legislature declared the request as inadmissible and in May of that year it was called to trial.
Paul Granda
The former president of the Board of Directors of the Iess, Paul Granda, gave an interview to LA HORA. In it, he indicated that he “is concerned” about the slowness of the process. “I am the first who seeks to expedite the trial to prove that I am innocent.”
He says he has been out of work for 14 months, he spent about a year with house arrest.
His case “progresses slowly” in criminal court 4 of Guayas. He was linked in November 2020, 22 days after the closing of the tax instruction. Guayaquil judge Ronald Guerrero called him to trial on May 17, 2021 for an alleged crime of organized crime, along with 16 other defendants.
The trial hearing was installed in November. Then there were two more sessions in which six witnesses from the Prosecutor’s Office spoke. 143 more are missing. They are summoned to a new hearing on January 24.
The Prosecutor’s Office states that there was a criminal structure to favor contracts in IESS health homes. Granda says that everything happened before he assumed the presidency of the institution in December 2018. He considers that in addition, they denied his jurisdiction of the National Court, which would annul everything that was acted on and that he was not responsible for signing any contract.
The element of conviction of the Prosecutor’s Office in this case is that Granda met with Abdará Bucaram Pulley. The former director of the IESS said that this appointment did occur, but not to speak of contracts. “I said that I was met by the delegation of President (Lenín) Moreno to discuss the electoral issue in the 2019 elections. The President asked me to attend this meeting. Bucaram himself has said that he has met more than 10 times with Lenín Moreno And that is not a crime. Why with me? “
He believes this is part of having “a scapegoat” to say that he is being investigated. He hopes that everything accelerates to get his life back.
