‘The guide told him that he had to pay $ 10,000 to have security’

“I had two broken ribs. He had bruises all over his head. They tried to remove my braces with shallow ones. Do you know what it is like to be naked in a tank of salty water? Or that they hit him tied to a metal ladder (of a bunk bed) and without being able to defend himself? That they put a wire on your temple and lose consciousness? They did that to me. I was sexually assaulted by seven people. Not even have I told my wife the atrocities they did to me. I am ashamed to say them. All with the permission of … ”.

Edmundo M.’s story shocked the judges of the Constitutional Court, the highest court that his wife had to go to because twice Edmundo was denied a writ of habeas corpus with which he requested the transfer to another prison, far from the Center of Turi Social Rehabilitation, Cuenca.

They don’t want me here. Here I am famous, because they tell me that I am a toad because I denounced (…) that many people do not. And do you know why I did it? Because I have a son that I clung to. It was the only thing I thought about when I was hanging from the ceiling 12 to 15 inches around my neck. It was the only thing I asked God, not to leave him alone, because I don’t want to imagine what would become of him without me. He is my reason for being here

Edmundo M.

Edmundo M. has been detained since July 27, 2020. That day the Police raided his apartment in a Cuenca condominium, near Ucubamba, for his alleged participation in the crime of illicit association. Edmundo entered a temporary cell and then cell 29 of the Provisional Detention Center (CDP), where a prison guide with the last name “Villacís” together with another inmate known by the alias of Commander told him that they would ‘take charge of his security , since they ran the CDP. ‘

He was then taken to a room without light, guarded by other inmates. “The people deprived of liberty and the guide Villacís beat him, beat him and threatened him with death. The guide told him that he had to pay $ 10,000 for his stay and security, within eight days, because otherwise they would kill him. him and his family, “said Edmundo’s wife. in the audience. There he assured that since then he has received calls to hand over the money.

“When he saw that we could not deliver the money, he continued to be a victim of torture.” She recounted this in three hearings, the last one before the Constitutional Court. Before, he did it before the provincial judge of Azuay Narcisa Ramos, and before the national magistrates Álvaro Ojeda, Iván Larco and Patricio Secaira. In both instances, Edmundo M.’s petition for habeas corpus was denied. His wife appealed to the Constitutional Court. There, with the favorable vote of the eight judges present, the Court concluded that the courtrooms where Edmundo’s case had been heard “did not adequately protect the right to his personal integrity.”

The Court annulled the sentence handed down by the lower judges, declared the violation of Edmundo’s rights and ordered that he be transferred to another prison, close to his home, his family and his lawyers. “The SNAI will inform this Court within 24 hours on the adoption of this measure,” said the ruling in February of this year.

The case of Edmundo and three more – from the Loja, Los Ríos and Cuenca prisons – were chosen by the Constitutional Court, and through them the actions of the judges who dealt with habeas corpus resources were reviewed, with which the prisoners ask for transfers, medical attention and other guarantees, because they fear for their lives.

After the analysis, the magistrates of the Court concluded that “there is a pattern regarding the lack of probative evidence to prove the humiliating treatment.” In other words, that the judges ‘forgot’ that the greatest weight of evidence must be presented, not by the detainee or affected, but by the prison entity, that is, the National Comprehensive Attention Service, SNAI, and that if evidence is missing they must request it ex officio. The SNAI did not accept an interview with this newspaper.

The Court also questioned that the provincial and national judges “did not value the medical examinations presented by the persons deprived of liberty, and in the case of the victims of sexual assaults, they did not consider their statements as preponderant evidence.”

The judgment of the Constitutional Court includes 17 resolutions, including the initiation of administrative proceedings against the judges who handled the three selected cases, that the judgment be disseminated at the national level and, mainly, in prisons, that the ruling in the judicial and police training school that the Ombudsman’s Office supervise habeas corpus processes and monitor compliance with the torture prevention mechanisms in the country’s 53 prisons.

The Ombudsman’s Office detailed that, although it does not have the competence of legal defense, since ‘it corresponds to the Public Defender’s Office’, from 2018 to last November they have attended 420 procedures in favor of those deprived of liberty, among them, 159 investigations, 98 support documents, 85 follow-ups of sentences, 61 due process surveillance, 8 habeas corpus and others.

Nelsa Curbelo: There are already dialogues with gang leaders to advance to the first objective, which is to stop the confrontations and deaths

The Guayas Judiciary did not attend an interview, but reported that from January to November 2021 550 habeas corpus have been processed: 53 accepted. He did not detail those presented by the prisoners.

Meanwhile, the prisons in the country accumulate human rights violations, says activist Billy Navarrete. “People who are in prison should only be prevented from free movement, not from other rights.” (I)

Prison extortions are paid in Guayaquil, but they are collected in accounts in Durán, Naranjal, Machala or Cuenca

Every night, in order to fall asleep, Matilde listens on her cell phone to the voice of her son murdered in prison. And there, between voice and text messages, he also finds the account numbers and the names of the people to whom every week, and sometimes daily, he made payments of $ 7, $ 13 or $ 26, so that his son Carlos did not sleep on the floor of a cell among a dozen prisoners, so that they could give him medicine, so that he could eat something or, most importantly, so that he would not suffer torture and assault.

He would pass me the account numbers for me to send him, he would send me several accounts. First it was to M. Mariscal, C. Guamán, O. Guncay. They were the first, but then they changed them

Matilde, mother who lost her son in jail.

Sometimes Carlos called desperately because “he had to pay for things that others did. If a tank was damaged, let them pay; if it was someone’s birthday, too ”, remembers Matilde.

She made the deposits and sent photos of the receipts to her son. The money was received by collectors, different according to the pavilion and the criminal gang, and with fixed collection quotas.

Under this mechanism, payments made to neighborhood accounts in Guayaquil reached front men in Durán, Naranjal, Machala or Cuenca, according to information given by relatives of prisoners who died in 2021.

The owners of a dozen accounts reviewed by EL UNIVERSO had their domicile in these cantons, among them O. Guncay and his son C. Guamán, whom Matilde paid without fail. O. Guncay, a 55-year-old woman who in social networks describes herself as a ‘housewife’, lives in an area of ​​Naranjal and, according to her tax records, since May of this year she has dedicated herself to agriculture, cultivation of citrus fruits such as grapefruits, limes and lemons.

His son, C. Guamán, has also received deposits, according to the vouchers that for months have been collected by the wives and mothers of prisoners at the Litoral Penitentiary, a prison in which 223 prisoners were murdered until November 12, 2021, in the middle of a war between gangs that fight to capture territories for the sale of drugs in Guayaquil.

The welder who entered prison for ‘attack’ on two policemen who were wearing civilian clothes

Guamán, 34, lives in Naranjal, although he began cultivating cocoa in Balao in November 2019. In the records of the Internal Revenue Service it is stated that its activity is suspended “by the tax administration.” Guncay and his son are listed as affiliated with the Campesino Social Security and two of his relatives are listed as being prosecuted for the crime of kidnapping.

Extortion in the country’s prisons occurs individually or as part of an organized structure. This is concluded in a ruling given last February by the Constitutional Court, which added that there is a structural problem “that shows the lack of effective control by the authorities.”

‘He deserved to grow old and a dignified death,’ says the daughter of the accountant murdered in the Penitentiary

“I have a fund with names and surnames of what I have deposited, about $ 8,000, for my son to eat. Every day they were $ 13, $ 7 for the toilet, and poor thing that I do not have. He paid $ 7 a week for cleaning, every Sunday, which was charged by the head of the ward, Alan, “said the mother of a prisoner.

Their payments were received – this mother says – M. Valdez, a 19-year-old young mother who lives in Durán; J. Viteri, a 36-year-old woman in Guayaquil; A. Quinde; J. Bayona, and others. (I)

Punishments, isolation, mistreatment and lack of toilets are some of the 18 problems detected by the mechanism against torture

At least 18 problems in the country’s prisons have identified the National Prevention Mechanism against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (MNPT) during visits to prisons since 2018.

In the reports presented annually by this entity of the Ombudsman’s Office, for example, infrastructure deficiencies are pointed out, such as damage to buildings, lack of maintenance, cells without mattresses, pavilions without sufficient toilets, lack of space for conjugal visits and lack of technological and security equipment.

Plan to transform prisons has barely been completed in 4%

Also the poor quality of food and lack of medicines. In human resources, the MNPT points out the few shifts for medical and psychological care, lack of doctors and specialists, as well as security personnel and public defenders. However, the greatest problems are related to human rights, including non-compliance with disciplinary sanctions and punishments and isolation, the lack of separation of the accused and sentenced according to their level of security, mistreatment and extortion, delays in the procedures for penitentiary benefits and transfers of prisoners to prisons far from their habitual residence.

Overcrowding, emphasizes the entity against torture, affects all problems, because “it triples their capacity, in centers that have even been operating for more than 100 years, such as the Ibarra Social Rehabilitation Center, the Babahoyo or Alausí ”.

The MNPT highlights in its reports that the Tungurahua 1 Center for the Deprivation of Liberty, located in Ambato, “is the only center nationwide that has a program in which those deprived of liberty carry out productive work (Reintegration to work, even some of them are paid ”.

In the 52 remaining prisons in the country “reality is far from the rehabilitation and reintegration objectives set by the system.”

Deprived of liberty from the Ambato CPL, they are part of literacy and high school programs, they have also received training in mural painting, they even made mortuary boxes at the beginning of the pandemic.

Carlos Pareja Yanuzzelli and in 2021 Alexis Mera, former officials of the Rafael Correa government, were transferred to this center, “for security reasons.” (I)