2024-04-02 19:09:41
Within the almost two hours of advance testimony given, between the morning and afternoon of Thursday, March 28, by the 35-year-old communicator Mayra Salazar, one of the 52 people prosecuted in the Metastasis case, a topic related to the current president of the Republic, Daniel Noboa, and alleged “settlement of judicial rulings against him in which the former member of the Judiciary Council (CJ) Xavier Muñoz and Judge Reinaldo C., also investigated in Metastasis, for organized crime, would have participated.
According to the statement of Salazar, who worked as a communicator for the Guayas Provincial Court of Justice formally for two months in 2023, but unofficially for about two years since 2021, the leader of the organization investigated in the Purga case, the former assemblyman of the Social Christian Party (PSC) Pablo M., to obtain lands that were not his property, had Judge Reinado C. as one of his operators, who apparently not only worked for him, but also fulfilled “the claims” of the member Muñoz. .
“This judge (Reinaldo C.) worked with God and the devil. It is Xavier Muñoz who in 2021 transfers him from the El Triunfo canton to the Samborondón canton so that he can fulfill his claims and that of his friend, Mr. Roberto Goldbaum, in the cases he had against Mr. Daniel Noboa Azín, today president of Ecuador. But so much was the power that Roberto Goldbaum had through his operator Xavier Muñoz that they not only fixed judicial rulings, but also persecuted free practicing lawyers who had defended Daniel Noboa in his cases. As an example of this, I mention Dr. Francisco Fierro Tamariz, who at the time was Daniel Noboa’s defense attorney and was persecuted and a malicious and reckless complaint was filed against him,” Salazar explained.
In the Judicial Procedure Computer System (Satje) of the Judicial Function, four cases are registered in which the current president Daniel Noboa is the plaintiff and Roberto Goldbaum, former father-in-law of the Ecuadorian president, and others are the defendant. Two of the cases have to do with the crime of damages and date from the years 2022 and 2023; Another of the criminal proceedings is for illicit association, from 2020; and a last one from 2020 that refers to the file of a previous investigation.
On April 7, 2021, the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS), chaired by Sofía Almeida, appointed Xavier Muñoz Intriago as the titular member of the CJ, part of the shortlist sent by the then President of the Republic, Lenín Moreno , to represent the Executive Function in the plenary session of the Judiciary.
Muñoz Intriago’s resume highlighted that he was a lawyer in the courts and tribunals of the Republic, a specialist in Tax Legislation and Procedural Law, a master’s degree in Tax Legislation and a master’s degree in Procedural Law. It was also defined that he served as advisor to the general management of the Bank of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS), advisor to the National Assembly and legal director of the Mortgage Credits of the IESS of the province of Guayas.
In the private sector, Muñoz Intriago claimed to have worked as legal director of the Ecuadorian Business Network, general manager of Serintriago SA (Banana Exporters Service) and, among other projects, developed the Guayaquil Dredging Project contest.
Muñoz Intriago resigned from the position of chief member of the CJ at the beginning of 2024, almost a month and a half after criminal proceedings were initiated against him for the crime of obstruction of justice within what was known as the Judicial Independence case. He is prosecuted along with the former president of the Judiciary Wilman Terán, also accused in Metastasis, and his former majority colleague in the plenary session of the CJ Maribel Barreno, who has been called to trial for influence peddling along with the also former member of the Judiciary Juan Jose Morillo.
Within Mayra Salazar’s testimony, the attorney general asked her if she had seen the member Xavier Muñoz with Pablo M at any time. The communicator answered yes and that it was at the latter’s home on Mocolí Island, adding that the department de Muñoz is in the same urbanization. Prosecutor Salazar added to the question whether she perhaps observed any other member of the CJ, to which the defendant flatly said that of course she saw Wilman Terán and Maribel Barreno in the same urbanization and Pablo M’s house.
The issue of President Noboa was included in the testimony of Mayra Salazar, since she provided data in which she pointed out Judge Reinaldo C. as one of the judicial officials that Pablo M. used to issue arrest warrants and imprison several people, like Julia Etelvina Quiroga Guaraca, in order to irregularly obtain lands that legally belong to other owners, including certain peasant associations.
The anticipated testimony of Mayra Salazar was requested by the attorney general, Diana Salazar, within the Metastasis case, a criminal process in which a “criminal enterprise” led by drug trafficker Leandro Norero, murdered in October 2022, is being investigated, and which would have permeated through threats and bribes to the justice system to obtain judicial rulings, prison benefits and privileged information from judges, police and prosecutors that served for the criminal cases that existed against Norero, his family and those close to the criminal structure.
In addition to the testimony of Mayra Salazar, the anticipated testimonies of the defendant Hélive A., close and right-hand man of Leandro Norero in various illicit activities, and the witnesses Marcelo Lasso Saavedra, who claims to have been a friend of Norero, alias the boss, and prosecutor Lidia Sarabia, a tax agent who carried out the criminal proceedings for money laundering against Norreo, his wife and several of the drug trafficker’s brothers. Due to this fact, Sarabia became a target of attacks by the criminal group.
By: KCH