Ecuador judge orders pre-trial detention for officials in oil graft case

An Ecuadorean judge ordered that the country's current comptroller and former energy minister be placed under pre-trial detention on charges of organized crime related to state oil company Petroecuador, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

An Ecuadorean judge ordered that the country's current comptroller and former energy minister be placed under pre-trial detention on charges of organized crime related to state oil company Petroecuador, prosecutors said on Wednesday. Prosecutors on Tuesday alleged that Comptroller Pablo Celi and former energy minister Jose Agusto Briones, who had also served as secretary to President Lenin Moreno, had abused their powers to orchestrate bribe payments related to Petroecuador contracts awarded between 2017 and 2020.

Both officials were transferred to a jail in capital Quito after the judge from Ecuador's National Court of Justice issued the ruling. The pre-trial detention measure can last up to 90 days. The charge of organized crime carries a possible prison sentence of between seven and 10 years. The accusations come after an employee of trader Gunvor Group last week pled guilty to U.S. charges of bribing Ecuadorean officials to win business with Petroecuador, part of a sweeping probe into relationships between commodity trading firms and Latin American state-run companies.

Prosecutors added that the judge had also ordered that five other people, including relatives of Celi and Agusto Briones, be placed in pre-trial detention in relation to the case. Celi's defense team plans to appeal the judge's ruling, according to local media. Reuters could not reach representatives of Agusto Briones for comment.

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