Guayaquil, Ecuador, Oct 7 (EFE).- An Ecuadorian judge acquitted on Wednesday 32 crew members of two vessels that were intercepted and bombed by the United States in the Pacific Ocean.
The crew members had been charged with criminal conspiracy after being accused of allegedly collaborating with drug traffickers.
“After reviewing the evidence presented by the prosecution, the judge determined that it had not been proven that these vessels and their crews had committed any illegal acts. No crime had been committed,” Juan Alvia, the defendant’s attorney, told EFE.
The case involves eight crew members from the Conquista 2 and 24 of the María Candelaria, two of the eight fishing vessels sunk by the US military in cooperation with the Ecuadorian government between Aug. 28 and Sep. 16.
According to US Southern Command, the boats were allegedly operating as floating refueling stations for speedboats transporting drugs to North America.
The crew members were accused of having ties to Los Choneros, the oldest criminal group in the Andean country, associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and one of the four Ecuadorian gangs designated as terrorist organizations by the US government.
However, Alvia pointed out that during the trial, the Prosecutor’s Office did not present any US report referring to investigations related to drug trafficking or fuel smuggling that involved his clients. “These are documents that do not exist,” he asserted.
This is a first-instance ruling, but the attorney believes the Prosecutor’s Office will not appeal it because “it has no evidence.”
This is the first of three trials against a total of 88 crew members from five ships bombed by the US.
The second trial will begin on Thursday for 46 crew members, and the third, for another 10, has been postponed to Oct. 20.
Alvia hopes that the judges assigned to the other two cases will also uphold the innocence of the remaining 56 defendants, based on this verdict, since “the facts are identical.”
Furthermore, considering that there are another 70 individuals associated with the other three sunken vessels, including several crew members from some of these five boats, who were arrested on different days but against whom the court did not file charges because no crime was found.
The attorney indicated that the crew members, who defended themselves while on conditional release, will now consider what actions to take and whether to request that the Prosecutor’s Office launch an investigation into the destruction of their fishing boats and the “kidnapping” they claimed to have experienced before being handed over to the Ecuadorian military.
On Friday, Human Rights Watch called on the governments of the United States and Ecuador to disclose the legal basis for these attacks and to “immediately investigate the abuses” reported by the crew members. EFE
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