On May 19, the former presidential candidate for Ecuador’s leftist Citizen Revolution party, Andres Arauz, learned that the country’s attorney general was bringing him up on charges.
Attorney General Diana Salazar Méndez accused Arauz of “illicit association” in a political case, referred to in Ecuador as the Caso Ligados, which concerns current and former members of the country’s Council for Citizen Participation (CPCCS), all with ties to the Citizen Revolution party, discussing strategies in 2024 to promote allies to positions of power within the CPCCS. Arauz is one of three prominent left figures being charged and facing possible jail time.
Arauz is the secretary general of Citizen Revolution and an outspoken opponent of the government of right-wing President Daniel Noboa, who was inaugurated to his second term on May 24.
Noboa is a Trump ally and the son of billionaire businessman Álvaro Noboa. Buoyed by a campaign rife with fake news, facing accusations of vote buying and fraud, Noboa secured a commanding victory in last month’s presidential election. Since then, he has wasted no time in targeting his political opponents.
Noboa is a Trump ally and the son of billionaire businessman Álvaro Noboa. Buoyed by a campaign rife with fake news, facing accusations of vote buying and fraud, Noboa secured a commanding victory in last month’s presidential election. Since then, he has wasted no time in targeting his political opponents.
Arauz says the charges against him are merely the latest example of Salazar weaponizing the judicial system against prominent figures of the Ecuadorian left. He says this is part of a larger campaign of lawfare waged to tarnish the image of progressive leaders in Latin America—in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and elsewhere—and attack their political reputations and their parties.
Salazar has been a controversial figure in Ecuador since she was appointed attorney general in 2019. She has faced widespread accusations of waging a politically motivated witch hunt against leading left figures in the country, including former President Rafael Correa and former Vice President Jorge Glas, who is currently serving time in jail.
Political analysts and opponents of the Noboa government accuse Salazar of using her authority to target Noboa’s political enemies, even though the attorney general’s office is supposed to be an independent branch of the Ecuadorian government.
Political analysts and opponents of the Noboa government accuse Salazar of using her authority to target Noboa’s political enemies, even though the attorney general’s office is supposed to be an independent branch of the Ecuadorian government.
And yet, Salazar has often received praise for her work from the US State Department, the US embassy in Ecuador, and media outlets like The Economist. She was listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2024. But she has herself been under investigation after a series of leaked chat messages between herself and an Ecuadorian member of the National Assembly called her impartiality and ethics into question.
The day after bringing Arauz up on charges, Salazar announced her resignation as attorney general, a position she has held for the last six years, and accepted a position as the country’s new ambassador to Argentina.
I spoke with Andres Arauz in May over WhatsApp. Below is the text transcript of our interview, which has been lightly edited lightly for clarity and readability.
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Michael Fox: Like you mentioned in a post on X, there have been accusations against you in the past, but this is the first time you’re formally being brought up on charges. What does this mean? What’s really going on here?
Andres Arauz: This is the first time that charges are being pressed against me. I’ve had many accusations in the past. When I was a presidential candidate in 2021, I was accused of receiving funds from the Colombian guerrillas, and that was all later disproven and understood to be fake.
So this is not the first time that I am being accused. I’ve had other accusations—all of them have been dismissed.
So this is not the first time that I am being accused. I’ve had other accusations—all of them have been dismissed.
But this is the first time since I was a candidate in 2021 that a bogus accusation has actually gotten through the investigation phase and they are now pressing charges against me.
But this is the first time since I was a candidate in 2021 that a bogus accusation has actually gotten through the investigation phase and they are now pressing charges against me.
What is funny, though, is that none of the investigation that the prosecutor’s office has done has actually required testimony from me, so they’re pressing charges without ever having asked for my testimony. They have not requested any documents related to me, except for my travel records in and out of the country.
It’s very disconcerting that the attorney general pressed charges against me the day before she quit—literally, the night before she announced her resignation and made it effective.
And, as we now know, she was designated ambassador to Argentina the day after she quit. So, Day 1: press charges against Andres. Day 2: she quits. Day 3: she’s named ambassador to Argentina.
But the fun fact, here—and the most relevant fact concerning judicial independence in the case of Ecuador—is that in the executive decree where President Daniel Noboa announced that Salazar is designated to become ambassador to Argentina, it says that the Argentinian government gave their formal acceptance for her to be ambassador on January 29, 2024.
The request for her to be ambassador was probably sent in early January 2024, which means that all this time that she was a supposedly independent attorney general, she was actually an employee of the Noboa government, or at least acting as someone assured to become an employee of the Noboa government. This, of course, creates conflicts of interest, given that I am in opposition, formally speaking and legally speaking, to the Noboa government.
This is a bogus political accusation on behalf of the Noboa government, clearly.
Fox: In Ecuador, the attorney general is supposed to be independent, right? They’re not a lackey of the president, or at least they shouldn’t be, correct?
Arauz: Unlike in the United States, where the attorney general is also a secretary of the Executive branch, in the case of Ecuador, the attorney general is outside of the Executive branch. It’s a completely independent authority that’s not even nominated by the president or by the national parliament. It’s a completely independent office of the state.
Fox: Why is this happening right now? January 2024 was roughly a year and a half ago…
Arauz: It’s political persecution. I was a very outspoken figure during the most recent election against Noboa and his government, his economic policies, his bad practices in terms of economic mismanagement, and also his corruption scandals. And of course, this is just payback. It’s payback time.
It’s political persecution. I was a very outspoken figure during the most recent election against Noboa and his government, his economic policies, his bad practices in terms of economic mismanagement, and also his corruption scandals. And of course, this is just payback.
Salazar is leaving because she fulfilled her duties in terms of the political agreement that she had with Noboa and former President Guillermo Lasso. In the last couple of weeks, before she left, she accused me and she accused former Vice President Jorge Glas of another crime, even though he’s already in jail. And she dismissed around 10 different accusations against Lasso.
So, it’s not a coincidence that all of this happened in the last two weeks before she left office. We believe that this is just a political arrangement between Salazar and the Noboa government, and this is why she lacks objectivity and impartiality. Her accusations should be reversed, or at least the accusation against me should be reversed, given this obvious conflict of interest.
Fox: Can you explain the charges against you?
Arauz: The charges against me are not explained in the letter where she says she’s gonna press charges against me. She just says, “I’m going to accuse Andres Arauz, Esther Cuesta, Raúl González, etc. because there is data.” There’s no actual motivation or explanation. It’s very difficult for me to defend myself if I don’t know what I’m being accused of.
The actual crime that she’s accusing me of is not corruption, it is not influence or meddling, nothing violent, nothing that has to do with drugs, nothing that has to do with organized crime. The charges against me are what in Ecuadorian criminal code is called “illicit association.” And illicit association is a pre-crime type of accusation, where the person accused is not accused of committing a crime, but of planning or conspiring or thinking about committing a crime.
So it’s a generic accusation. The history of the “illicit association” type of criminal behavior goes back to Italy, when they couldn’t get the mob leaders for assassination or extortion, because those crimes were never visible. So they got them for being in meetings where those things were being planned. Now, this criminal charge, which has been historically used for violent crimes that were planned but not perpetrated, is being used for a political issue. You know, “He was planning a political meeting,” or something like that—it’s extremely unheard of. And it’s a very bad signal, because it means that they don’t have any evidence. They would have accused me of corruption if they had evidence, but they didn’t. They would have accused me of something violent or committing some type of economic crime, but they didn’t. They’re accusing me of political pre-crime.
The formal accusation from March—not against me, but against the other people that are being accused on this matter—was that there is an illicit association to take the power of the state by designating people that are more ideologically close to Citizen Revolution, which is the name of our party.
I know that in the end this case has no possibility of being successful if there were rule of law, but in the immediate future I have to ensure that they don’t put me in jail.
I can send you the accusation from the attorney general. It says, “Yes, I’m accusing them of trying to take the power of the state by putting in people that are ideologically close to them.” That is literally what a political party does!
It’s very, very troublesome. I just laugh, because it’s laughable. But this is a person’s freedom and liberty…
Fox: What are the next steps in the charges against you?
Arauz: The now-former Attorney General Diana Salazar sent a letter to the judge of this case, Daniella Camacho, saying that she should define a time and date for my hearing, where she will decide whether or not to include me as a formal suspect and what the provisional measures are for considering me a suspect.
So, there is a range of provisional measures and outcomes here, from nothing to showing up in court every two weeks, to not being able to leave the country, to wearing one of those bracelets, to prison.
That’s the range of options that the judge has when considering the supposed danger I pose to society. So they have to determine what kind of measures they’re going to apply against me, and of course that’s my main fight right now. Because I know that in the end this case has no possibility of being successful if there were rule of law, but in the immediate future I have to ensure that they don’t put me in jail, and that they don’t prohibit my freedom of movement, because, as you know, I’m all over the place. I travel extensively. I’m an internationalist. I have a lot of work abroad. And if they don’t allow me to move around the world, that is a very severe restriction on me and my different duties.
Fox: Do you think that, at the end of the day, they know they don’t have anything on you, but they’re doing this as part of a larger effort to attack, intimidate, and crush the opposition here in Ecuador?
Arauz: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is absolutely what is happening. And if you check some of the pro-government trolls and some of their main media spokespeople, that’s what they’re going for. They’re saying, “Haha, finally, we’re going to get you and you’re gonna rot in jail!”
We have identified previously, from research, who are the trolls being paid with our taxpayer dollars. And we know that’s the message that they want to send. And we also have official government voices, party parliamentarians and legislators, saying, “Haha, we’re gonna put you in jail!” and so on.
This was expected, because this is what these new proto-fascist governments do. They use lawfare to silence their opponents and consolidate power.
In fact, the reason why I’m involved in this case at all is because on March 12, 2024, a group of parliamentarians from the government’s party, led by Adrian Castro, a legislator from the Azuay Province, filed a criminal complaint against me. And the day after… You know, our judicial system isn’t exactly efficient and quick, but in this case it was… So, the day after, Attorney General Salazar decided to include this criminal complaint and merge it with the Ligados case.
So this is a clear indication that I’m being included here for political reasons. In fact, the criminal complaint says that I should be investigated because I had posted a tweet in solidarity with Augusto Verduga, who is a member of the Citizens Council, and who is ideologically close to us, when his advisor was assassinated.
I also said that the prosecutor should investigate the possibility that the assassination had political motives. So that’s why I’m in this case—for a tweet.
Fox: How do these charges against you fit within the context of the lawfare against progressive leaders across the region, from Jorge Glass to former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to ex-Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner?
Arauz: Well, this is a continuation of political persecution and the use of the judicial system for political purposes.
They’ve been doing that for the last 10 years against political leaders. Of course, the people you mentioned are very high profile political leaders that have received similar treatment by the judicial system in these attacks against them. And in my case, while I’m perhaps not as high-profile as them, I have been a very uncomfortable voice in the Ecuadorian political scene—with the added element that my voice has a lot of international repercussions, because of my work abroad and so on. So it’s a voice that they definitely want silenced, and they want to basically damage my reputation.
Fox: The name Diana Salazar means nothing to anyone outside of Ecuador. But putting her within the context of this larger lawfare happening in the region, could we call her the Sergio Moro of Ecuador? (Sergio Moro was, of course, the biased judge who jailed former Brazilian president Lula on trumped-up charges for 580 days, before the decision was tossed out by the Supreme Court.)
Arauz: Absolutely. In fact, the analogy is perfect, because Sergio Moro conspired with the prosecutors and the judges to go after Lula the person, and not the supposed crimes. You can see the same motive in Diana Salazar’s chats that have been leaked in the past (in a piece that was published by José Olivares and Ryan Grim in The Intercept and in Drop Site News), where she talks to judges, to former judiciary council members, and to Ronny Aleaga—it is very clear that she was conspiring to use the judicial system to attack these political opponents. So there’s a clear analogy to Sergio Moro and his chats with Deltan Dallagnol.
So that’s one point of analogy. The second point of analogy is the fact that as soon as the candidate that beat the left in Brazil won, Jair Bolsonaro, Sergio Moro became Bolsonaro’s first justice minister.
In the case of Diana Salazar, as soon as her job was over as the attorney general, she was designated an ambassador for Daniel Noboa’s government.
So, the analogy is perfect. It resembles perfectly what has been happening here.
Fox: What do we know about the role and involvement of the United States here? In the case of Lula, for instance, through the leaks that were published in The Intercept, we know that the FBI was highly involved with Sergio Moro and the Lava Jato investigation. Do we have any idea of the role the US is potentially playing with Diana Salazar and these lawfare cases against Jorge Glass, Rafael Correa, and now yourself?
Arauz: Yeah, she’s very, very close to the US Embassy in general, and specifically to former Ambassador Michael Fitzpatrick. She wasn’t too close to Ambassador [Art] Brown, who was designated the last year of the Biden administration, but he was just sacked a few days ago by the Trump administration.
She had very close links to the Department of Justice, specifically a deputy director there. We did some research and found some strong links.
But what we know about her history in broader terms is that she was selected by the United States as a key prosecutor in the first FIFA-gate case—she was the lead prosecutor in Ecuador. And so the US got to groom her and they took her on trips, they sent her to the UK, and that’s when they sort of signed her up to be a strong militant for the more political cases.
And then, after that, the US basically reaffirmed its support in the form of an award that the State Department gave her in 2021. She’s been awarded these prizes and stuff by the US government, showing clearly that they are behind her. Whenever there’s a crisis with regards to her position, they go and take pictures with her and say, “We support the attorney general of Ecuador.”
They’re very explicit about their support. And just recently, when she resigned as Attorney General, they issued these really nice words about how exemplary and perfect she has been.
Fox: How does it feel to have these charges levied against you?
Arauz: To be sincere, it is a surprise, because for me this case has always been absurd. That may be a little bit of a naive attitude—one always hopes that there will be rule of law and not these selective cases of political persecution.
So there was a little bit of surprise on one hand, but then, the realist in me, the political mind, is like, “No, of course this is not a surprise.” This was expected, because this is what these new proto-fascist governments do. They use lawfare to silence their opponents and consolidate power. We’ve studied this, we have books on it. So this is always what was going to happen.
Now, there is always a personal dimension to this. It takes a heavy toll on one’s closer circles, you know, family and so on. But fortunately, I do feel like I have a broad support network that will, at least, make these injustices visible.
So, I will fight the good fight. I will present all of the paperwork and all the evidence to clear my name. We’ll see if that is enough for the judges, or whether the political pressure from the government and the media will be what prevails.
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.