America accused former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa of corruption and banned him from entering the country.
The US State Department announced this Wednesday that it bans the entry into the country of former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) and former Vice President Jorge Glas, whom it accuses of involvement in corruption cases.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement that Correa and Glas “are not eligible to enter the United States due to their involvement in significant acts of corruption during their tenure.”
According to the Joe Biden administration, Ecuador’s former president and his ‘number two’ abused their public positions by “taking bribes in exchange for the awarding of favorable government contracts.”
In the statement, Miller expressed the United States’ support for all Ecuadorians who are “committed to increasing government transparency and holding corrupt public officials accountable.”
Correa, who ruled from 2007 to 2017 as one of the leaders of the Latin American left, has been living in Belgium since the end of his mandate, which granted him political asylum in 2022, allowing him to avoid jail in Ecuador. Got permission.
The former president, who is still present in his country’s political life through social networks, has been sentenced to eight years in prison and disqualified in the ‘Bribery 2012-2016’ case.
Glass, who was one of the powerful figures in Correa’s government, was arrested on April 5 during an attack by Ecuadorian security forces on the Mexican Embassy in Quito, where he was seeking asylum.
Glass was then subjected to an arrest warrant and placed in preventive detention in the case of reconstruction works after the strong 2016 earthquake, where he is accused of alleged embezzlement (embezzlement of public funds), although both he and Correa themselves Are declared victims. Of political oppression.
Korea: “No rights”
The former President of Ecuador said this Wednesday that the United States government “has no right” to ban him and his immediate family from entering its territory.
Through a message on social networks, Correa once again proved his innocence in the face of the eight-year prison sentence and political disqualification imposed in 2020 for bribery in the ‘Bribery 2012-2016’ case, where he and his Several associates were convicted of irregular financing of Alianza Pais, the official political movement at the time.
“Human evil… They ignore the fact that no one in the world has accepted punishment for ‘mental impact’ and that five countries have given political asylum to people involved in bribery cases. “They are punishing my family. Also included in this. It has no right!” expressed Correa, who always questions why the sentence he was convicted of had a ‘psychic impact’ on the other people involved.
The United States Embassy in Ecuador said in a later statement that the ban imposed on Correa and Glaswegians from entering its territory also applies to their closest relatives.
In Correa’s case, the sanctions also include his wife Anne Malherbe, a Belgian national, and his adult children Sophia, Anne-Dominique and Raphaël.
As for Glass, the ban would also apply to his wife, Cynthia Diaz, and his son, George Glass Diaz.
Correa, who ruled from 2007 to 2017 as one of the leaders of the Latin American left, has been living since the end of his term in Belgium, which granted him political asylum in 2022, before Ecuador’s National Court Had requested his extradition.