Ecuador: Court Upholds Prison for Soldiers Prosecuted for Disappearance of Minors
Citizens hold photos of child victims of forced disappearance in front of Ecuadorian soldiers. X/ @BNPeriodismo
February 21, 2025 Hour: 12:23 pm
In December 2024, the bodies of four minors were found dismembered and burned.
On Thursday, the Guayas Court’s Chamber for Criminal, Military Criminal, Police Criminal, and Traffic Matters upheld the pretrial detention of 16 members of the Ecuadorian Armed Forces.
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On the night of December 8, 2024, these soldiers irregularly detained brothers Ismael and Josue Arroyo, aged 15 and 14, along with their friends Saul Arboleda, 15, and Steven Medina, 11, outside a shopping center in southern Guayaquil.
Following their detention, the soldiers took the children to the Taura area, about 30 kilometers from Guayaquil, where one of the main bases of the Ecuadorian Air Force (FAE) is located. Several weeks later, the minors’ bodies were found dismembered, burned, and showing signs of torture.
Once the case became public, the Prosecutor’s Office decided to open an investigation for the crime of enforced disappearance. The 16 soldiers who were in the patrol that night were linked to the case and are currently being held in the prison of the Andean city of Latacunga.
Abraham Aguirre, lawyer for the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDH) and for the families of the minors, stated that the three judges ruled that pretrial detention was an appropriate and proportional measure.
“After an exhaustive analysis of the arguments presented by the lawyers during the hearing, the judges determined that these were insufficient and that pretrial detention served the purpose of ensuring the defendants’ appearance in court, guaranteeing the victims’ rights in a future comprehensive reparation process, and preventing them from obstructing the investigation,” he said.
The judges acknowledged that every detention must follow due process procedures and that “there is no element to suggest that the minors’ detention occurred in a context of flagrante delicto.”
“The soldiers argued that the children were criminals. However, even if that had truly been the case, the soldiers should have provided them with the basic guarantees that every person under arrest in flagrante delicto is entitled to,” Aguirre said, emphasizing that the soldiers’ lawyers chose to focus only on what happened after the events.
“They centered their arguments on the cause of the minors’ deaths when this crime is about enforced disappearance. Therefore, they never addressed the December 8 detention,” he clarified, adding that the investigation remains ongoing and that they are waiting for the Prosecutor’s Office to set a new date for the reconstruction of events, a proceeding that has already been postponed twice.
The “Four from Guayaquil” case adds to the numerous reports of human rights violations committed by Ecuadorian security forces under the “internal armed conflict” declared by President Daniel Noboa.
Since the state of “internal armed conflict” was declared, the Prosecutor’s Office has recorded over 15 reports of extrajudicial executions, 83 investigations into torture, 223 cases of excessive use of force, and 8 cases of enforced disappearance.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: EFE
