The handover of the reconstruction of the third report of the Argentine expert Roberto Meza on the assassination of General Jorge Gabela is a major advance for the investigation of the crime. The expert presented the names of the possible clients and indicated that the murder could be connected to General Gabela’s accusations about irregularities in the procurement of 7 Dhruv helicopters.

According to Dr. Ramiro Román, the lawyer of Ms. Patricia Ochoa, Gabela’s widow, it is not a common crime (there would be an extrajudicial execution), it is a human rights crime, “a non-statutory case and it has gone to another level . The State Prosecutor’s Office must act in several aspects.

cough (…) it is not that the report separated (from the investigation) President Rafael Correa. The responsibility of the officials mentioned in the report is part of a state crime, in which state officials and employees intervene in the commission of a person’s death” (EL UNIVERSO, July 13, 2023).

In the ominous story surrounding the murder of the general of the Republic and the painful situation of his widow and close relatives, it is necessary to point out as something positively correct the intervention of the Constitutional Court on this occasion (February 2023), since it answered the request for access to information about Meza’s third application in a sound and concrete manner. ombudsman in 2018, and which judges refused judicial functions.

Indeed, in unanimous judgment no. 2366-18-EP/23 (rapporteur judge: Enrique Herrería), respecting the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CourtHR), developing constitutional principles and rules, the Constitutional Court ordered the reconstruction of the third Meza report, and among various considerations, it pointed out that there close connection between the right to access information of public importance and the right to the truth, when this information relates to crimes or human rights violations. In such a way that when access to information of public significance is prevented, the right to the truth is also violated, because information (such as that of expert witness Meza) can be used to reconstruct the fact, the causes of the crime and can help locate the person responsible and thus obtain their sanction and compensation to victims. For the Court, the refusal to provide information of this nature has a direct impact on the right of the next of kin to know the truth and on the right of society as a whole.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in the case of La Cantuta, established that every state must fight against impunity, since impunity encourages the chronic repetition of human rights violations and the complete helplessness of victims and family members, who have the right to know the full truth about the facts, and the perpetrators punish. Recognizing and exercising the right to the truth is an important means of compensation. We must be aware that the state fully satisfies the just aspirations of Gabela’s relatives. (OR)