Ecuador detains former minister José Serrano after U.S. deportation

Filed 1h ago · Via Global Voices · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Bushwick Tarantella Loop

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: SIJM MIGS · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Former Interior Minister José Serrano was deported from the United States to Ecuador after an immigration judge denied his asylum bid, and he now faces pretrial detention over the assassination of journalist Fernando Villavicencio along with several other investigations dating back to his time under President Correa.

According to reporting cited in the piece, President Noboa announced Serrano's impending arrival on X just fifteen minutes after the deportation flight departed, following high-level meetings with U.S. officials. Serrano arrived shackled and later in a bulletproof vest and helmet, and was placed in the El Encuentro detention center.

Ecuadorian officials have already framed the case as vindication: the interior minister declared that 'no one is above the law' while another minister called Serrano one of the country's most sinister figures, well ahead of any trial. Serrano's defense disputes the murder allegation and says the case leans on a single protected witness; Serrano himself has complained about prison conditions.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A president who posts the arrival fifteen minutes after the plane leaves the ground is telling you what this day is really about, and it is not paperwork. Maybe Serrano did every last thing they say he did. But when the cabinet has already settled on “most sinister figure in the country” before a single witness has been cross-examined, the trial starts looking like a formality somebody scheduled to be polite.

Source: Read the original at Global Voices → Scored: Bushwick Tarantella Loop · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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