Quito -
(Updated at 21:00)
A court of justice of the National Court accepted the cassation appeal requested by Luis Chiriboga Acosta, former president of the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF), and Pedro Vera Valverde, who held the position of accountant in the same institution, and modified their prison sentence. For the first one it will be 6 years and for the second one it will be 2 years, for the crime of money laundering.
Hugo Mora Asanza, treasurer of the FEF between 2010 and 2015, the period in which the offense was committed, did not appeal the cassation hearing. His lawyer, Wilson Rodríguez, tried to argue his client's innocence, but the magistrates denied his request, since in this instance, it was explained, what is exposed is whether there were irregularities in the process. As he was involved in the same crime, his punishment was reduced to six years.
Judge Marco Maldonado, who deliberated with Iván Saquicela and Édgar Flores, after about 30 minutes, was the one who announced the resolutions.
"The principle of favorability that we requested has been applied, which was to judge engineer Chiriboga with the legislation applicable to the years in which the crimes were allegedly committed. That is why the sentence has been reduced to six years of imprisonment (the initial sentence was ten years)", declared Erwin Blum, defense lawyer for the former president of the FEF.
He explained that Chiriboga will remain under house arrest. "Yes, there are guarantees in the Constitution and laws for people who are over 65 years old. They are part of vulnerable groups and can serve the rest of their sentence at home", he detailed.
Chiriboga, who surrendered to justice on December 4, 2015, is 71 years old, 18 of them he was the "boss" of Ecuafútbol. "He cannot go to a normal prison because the Constitution prohibits it. There is sufficient legislation and rulings from the National Court", insisted Blum.
In another aspect, he explained that the economic fine "remains and is the double" as stipulated in the previous sentence. The amount of money laundering was 6.1 million dollars.
The principle of favorability requested by the lawyers of Chiriboga and Vera was argued that the sentence should have been applied with the anti-money laundering law in force in 2010, the year the crime occurred. And not with the Integral Penal Organic Code, in force since 2014.
According to the first document, the penalty ranges from six to nine years for money laundering. Meanwhile, in the other instance it is from 10 to 13 years. (D)