Former Ecuadorian minister refugee in Mexico sentenced to preventive detention

Madrid. A judge issued preventive detention against Walter Solís, former Minister of Transportation with former President Rafael Correa for the so-called Manabí Reconstruction Case. In addition, an arrest request has been issued to Interpol against Solís, who received refugee status in Mexico in 2021.

The Prosecutor’s Office accuses Solís and five other senior officials of embezzlement of funds, including the former undersecretaries of Public Works Franklin Bernal and Omar Chamarro and the former director of the National Public Contracting Service (SERCOP), reports the Ecuavisa television network.

For the former Minister of Transportation Boris Córdova, he has also requested alternative precautionary measures such as a prohibition on leaving the country and periodic presentation before a judge, and for the former director of the Technical Secretariat of Real Estate Management of the Public Sector (Real Estate), Milton Maldonado, he has requested a periodic presentation before a judge at least once a month because he lives in Spain.

In the Manabí Reconstruction case, former vice president Jorge Glas is already being prosecuted; the former secretary of the Reconstruction Committee Carlos Bernal and the former manager of Strategic Ecuador Pedro Ortíz. Glas’s arrest last week while he was at the Mexican Embassy in Quito has provoked a wave of criticism domestically and internationally.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Glas and the other defendants diverted 367 million dollars (about 344 million euros) collected through the Solidarity Law, which were to be used exclusively for priority works for those affected by the earthquake in Manabí in 2016.

Due to the emergency, they avoided the process of a regular tender and allocated the funds to the repair of parks and aircraft and benefited the company of a direct relative of Bernal. Likewise, the Public Ministry assures that there were overcharges in the acquisition of mobile hospitals and irregularities in the resettlements for victims.