Long sentences in case of Afro-Ecuadorian ‘Guayaquil Four’ focuses attention on president’s crackdown on crime
A court in Ecuador has sentenced 11 air force personnel to decades in prison over the forced disappearance” of four Afro-Ecuadorian boys aged between 11 and 15 during security operations in the country’s largest city last year.
The case of the “Guayaquil Four” is widely seen as the starkest example of human rights abuses under the iron-fist security policy pursued by the rightwing president, Daniel Noboa, who placed the armed forces at the centre of the fight against drug trafficking.
Eleven servicemen were sentenced to 34 years and eight months in prison. Five others, who confessed and cooperated with the investigation, received reduced sentences of two years and six months, and one was acquitted.
“The cruelty with which the four minors were victimised has been proven,” said the presiding judge, Jovanny Suárez, who was joined by two other judges.
