The commissioners visited the Regional prison and the Women’s prison, but for safety reasons they did not enter the Penitentiary, where almost 200 inmates have died since se
In two weeks, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will issue a report on the prison situation in Ecuador. Despite the fact that the delegates had not planned to meet with the families of the murdered inmates, at the meeting held Thursday afternoon at the Ombudsman’s Office, this body gave them copies of 44 testimonies from the families of the inmates murdered in the recent massacres registered in the Litoral Penitentiary.
But, in addition, there was the opportunity for the delegates to speak personally with the relatives of several of the 65 prisoners killed on November 12. The family of John Campusano, the accountant arrested in the Isspol case, was following the members of the IACHR with the intention of being heard.
They were with posters outside the Regional jail, then they went to the Guayas Government and from there they followed them to the Ombudsman’s Office, where the delegates were interested when they saw the family and made them come to the entity to listen to them.
Campusano was assassinated on November 12 in the most recent massacre, just two days before his request for a hearing to change his pretrial detention was accepted.
Relatives of the deceased said that they do not expect compensation, but rather that the judge and the prosecutor who kept the accountant in prison while the investigation was taking place, will be punished. They argued that the alleged beneficiaries of the Police funds fled the country before the raids were carried out at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, and that the accountant was arrested, who, according to them, was innocent.
Lawyer Juan Vizueta, who legally represents the family, said that the delegates’ recommendation was to file a complaint against the Ecuadorian State with the IACHR, which, he said, they would do in the coming days.
But, in addition to that, Vizueta explained that a complaint would be filed in Ecuador before the Administrative Contentious Court for the actions of the justice entities in this case.
The lawyer for the Campusano family said that they let the delegates know that in Ecuador the recommendations on the use of preventive detention are allegedly not being followed, that there is an indiscriminate use of this measure and that, in the case of their client, it was 72 days waiting for them to accept the appeal to the measure, and this finally happened two days after his death.
The delegation visited the main prison complexes in the country on Thursday as part of their agenda to verify the human rights situation in the prison system. Four delegates and four international technicians are in Ecuadorian territory for that purpose.
This delegation was divided: four people were visiting the prisons of the Sierra and four, those of the Coast.
These IACHR visits take place after the massacres that occurred in the Litoral Penitentiary, which on September 28 caused 120 inmates to be killed and on November 12, 65 more. (I)
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