It took 13 years after the assassination of General Jorge Gabela for the motives that led to such a heinous crime to become clear. He spent only a year in Rafael Correa’s government as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force (FAE), resigning when he publicly announced his opposition to the purchase of Dhruv helicopters. Because of the complaints, Gabela received threats, lawsuits and persistent monitoring ordered by generals from the FAE command. On December 19, 2010, he was seriously injured and died after 10 days of agony. Patricia Ochoa, the general’s wife, claimed that the murder was connected to the purchase of a helicopter, while the official version said that it was an ordinary crime.

fair recognition

Thanks to the tireless and tireless efforts of General Gabela’s wife to clarify the facts and ensure that justice is served, she forced Rafael Correa to establish an Inter-Institutional Commission in 2012, which ordered the Minister of Justice to hire expert Roberto Meza. After rigorous work, Meza submitted a report to the Minister of Justice that had 3 products, and it should be noted that the third product should be made only if the second product would identify the possible perpetrators of the crime.

The third product that was in the custody of the Ministry of Justice mysteriously disappeared, but 3 appeared with different versions. On February 4, 2015, at a press conference, the Minister of Justice, without blushing, read one of those versions that did not even have a summary, worse the expert’s signature, maintaining the version that the crime was an ordinary crime.

Roberto Meza: They used a report that had the conclusions they wanted. I’m not talking about what was forged, I think a new document was made and they didn’t dare to forge my signature because that was the last thing missing

At the plenary session of the Assembly on July 5, 2018, a multi-party committee of 7 representatives was formed to collect and analyze the documentation related to the death of General Gabela.

On November 14, 2018, with the votes of 6 out of 7 members of the Commission, the report was approved, only Marcela Aguiñaga abstained. It concluded that there was sufficient evidence to establish that there was a possible state crime; In addition, they have asked to probe the assets and financial movements of former officials involved in the purchase of Dhruv helicopters. Officials such as Rafael Correa, Fernando Cueva, María Fernanda Espinosa, Lady Zúñiga, Lenin Lara, José Serrano, Carlos Pólit, among others, were named in the report.

On February 17, 2023, the Constitutional Court ordered the formation of a commission for the restoration of the third product that disappeared. President Guillermo Lasso, respecting the aforementioned provision, organized a Commission that engaged the expert Meza who reconstructed the third product in which he states that there are sufficient indications to locate the possible perpetrators of the crime against General Jorge Gabela.

It is worth noting that Correa was familiar with the process of the purchase of Dhruv helicopters in his capacity as President of the Republic, he chaired the Honorable Committee for National Defense, and his Minister of Defense, Javier Ponce, was the Vice President, he signed the purchase of 7 helicopters, as the legal representative of the ministry . (OR)