Ecuador's ex-president detained in organized crime probe
Gonzalo Solano, Associated Press
Updated 5:38 pm CDT, Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Photo: ARNULFO FRANCO, AP
FILE - In this April 27, 2005 file photo, Ecuador's former President Abdala Bucaram leaves the Foreign Ministery in Panama City, where he sought political asylum after fleeing his country amid massive protests that forced the ouster of President Lucio Gutierrez. Bucaram was detained at his home in Guayaquil, Ecuador on June 3, 2020, during a search warrant ordered by the Prosecutor's Office investigating alleged embezzlement through a contract for hospital medical supplies.
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A former Ecuadorian president known for his wild antics has been detained in an organized crime probe as authorities investigate the murder of an Israeli man jailed in a possible COVID-19 medical supplies scandal, the nation’s interior minister said Wednesday.
Heavily armed police burst into Abdalá Bucaram’s home, waking up the 68-year-old in his bed and detaining him under a judge’s order in the port city of Guayaquil, Interior Minister María Paula Romo told an Ecuadorian radio station.
Bucaram has not been charged, but Romo said a judge ordered his detention while investigators examine “the degree of participation – if there was or not” in crimes related to an inmate’s death Saturday at the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil.
. . .
The chief prosecutor’s office confirmed Bucaram had been detained, but revealed little about the investigation, other than to say it is part of an organized crime probe that also involves one of the ex-president’s sons and three transit employees.
Bucaram – who was kicked out of office by Congress six months after his 1996 election – has been caught up in a COVID-19 crime probe since June, when authorities raided his home and found an unlicensed gun, several pre-Columbian art sculptures, as well as 5,000 face masks and 2,000 coronavirus antibody rapid test kits.
More:
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Ecuador-s-ex-president-detained-in-organized-15479619.php
Since Ecuador's President Lucio Gutierrez was mentioned in the picture's caption, I felt it best to add the picture I have always loved, of Lucio Gutierrez reacting to a terrifiying attack from an Ecuadorean parrot.
Ecuadorean President elect Lucio Gutierrez reacts after a parrot bit
his ear during a visit to the jungle town of Tena, his childhood town, on
Tuesday. Gutierrez defeated banana billionaire Alvaro Noboa in a
two-way runoff on November 24. — Reuters
Can't stand the guy, but love the parrot.
