‘Entire case is criminal conspiracy’: Ecuador's Correa reveals ‘fraud’ behind corruption case against him to RT

The bribery case against top Ecuadorian officials was a political ploy with a predetermined outcome, so it's natural that the court wouldn't allow any evidence that would crumble it, Ecuador's ex-president Rafael Correa told RT.

On Tuesday, an Ecuadorian court convicted Correa and 17 others on charges of accepting bribes and spending them on political campaigning. The former president, who was tried in absentia, said the prosecution relied on fraudulent evidence while the judges would not accept proof of fabrication.

"[The prosecution] showed files from aide's computer. We've managed to obtain them. A Colombian firm confirmed that they were obtained through hacking in 2016 and modified in 2018," he told RT.

He was referring to files gathered from one of the defendants, Laura Teran, which were presented by prosecutors as evidence in the case. Teran worked for another defendant, Pamela Martinez, a former aide of Correa. Both women received reduced sentences in the case after pleading guilty.

After the trial started in February, Correa said the original files had been analyzed for his defense team by Adalid, a cybersecurity firm, but the court rejected the results.

They would never accept this evidence. Because they are afraid of the truth.

There are plenty of indicators that the prosecutors and the court worked hand-in-glove to hand down the guilty verdict, Correa insists. One of the justices had a personal connection to a secretary working at the attorney general's office, he said. There was also a publication in alternative media of what was purported to be the pre-written verdict for the court to read. All these details point to a 'processual fraud,' according to Correa.

This entire case is a criminal conspiracy to use political influence for personal gain.

Correa said the government of President Lenin Moreno, his handpicked successor who made a policy U-turn after coming to power and became his fiercest accuser, simply wanted to eliminate competition. The sentence bars the former president from running for public offices for 25 years.

Ecuador is set to have two rounds of general elections in February and April next year. Correa remains a popular politician in the country, with the decade of his rule remembered for distancing the state from neoliberal policies and a rapid reduction of poverty. Moreno switched back to big-business-friendly governance and saw his support dwindle amid several corruption scandals and, more recently, poor handling of the coronavirus epidemic.

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