Ecuador gives stiff jail sentence to four for media slander

Feb 16, 2012, 20:24 GMT

Quito - Ecuador's Supreme Court Thursday upheld three-year jail sentences for an editorial writer and three newspaper owner-executives who were found guilty of slandering President Rafael Correa.

In addition, the newspaper El Universo was fined 40 million dollars, a sum that could bankrupt the firm, a media rights organization said.

Correa, who attended the hearing, declared his satisfaction with the result. 'The truth has shone through,' he told reporters. 'We have shown that you can not only bring the little clowns to justice but also the circus owners.'

The sentence provoked condemnation from international media rights organizations. El Universo's defence lawyer vowed to take the case to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and Court.

At issue was an editorial written by Emilio Palacio about the police uprising in Ecuador in September 2010, when Correa was detained at a police hospital and was rescued in a military raid that claimed five lives.

'In the future, a new president, perhaps an enemy of his, could take him before a penal court for having ordered discretional fire without prior notice against a hospital that was full of civilians and innocent people,' the story said.

Correa denounced this as slander and filed a suit as a private citizen. He demanded 80 million dollars in compensation, which the courts later reduced to 40 million dollars.

At the end of a 16-hour hearing that ended in the early hours of Thursday, Judge Wilson Merino dismissed the defendants' appeals and ratified sentences that had been issued by two lower courts.

'Today the politicization of justice in favour of the executive has been confirmed,' said defence lawyer Joffre Campaña after the judgement.

El Universo's publisher Carlos Perez sought and obtained asylum at the Panamanian Embassy in Quito. Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli confirmed on Twitter that he had granted asylum.

Perez's brothers and deputies, Cesar and Nicolas Perez, were said to be in Miami.

Reporters Without Borders slammed the ruling, and called it a 'devastating setback for freedom of expression.'

'The consequences of this decision have implications far beyond the El Universo case,' the organization said on its website. 'The National Court of Justice has rubber-stamped a licence for self-censorship which could well have repercussions on other media organizations in the future, whatever their politics and whatever kind of government is in place.'

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists expressed outrage over the decision, saying it could bankrupt the newspaper 'solely because President Correa disliked an opinion piece.'

'This shortsighted ruling will only keep Ecuadoran journalists from investigating powerful politicians; it represents a serious setback for democracy in Ecuador,' CPJ said.

Correa in the past declared he would not profit by 'a cent' from the case and would donate it to an environmental project in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest.