If you want a window into what could have happened to an Ecuador judge if that person ruled against Ecuador and for Chevron, the Cléver Jiménez matter gives you one. Ecuador President Rafael Correa is Chris Christie on steroids and unchanged by anti-corruption laws, because Ecuador doesn’t appear to have any.
The libel and slander charge came after Cléver Jiménez had accused Rafael Correa of orchestrating a faked armed raid where the president was rescued during the police uprising on September 30, 2010.
Remember that one, where he said “Come and get me!”
This wasn’t the first time Correa had someone who accused him of wrongdoing jailed. Here’s the other account, and this one was because a newspaper writer referred to him as a “dictator”:
Anyway, Cléver Jiménez filed a court complaint against Correa, which, of course, went no where, as the Ecuador Court never sides against the man who pays its bills, President Correa. Then Correa, proving once again he has an amazingly thin skin, counter-sued Cléver Jiménez. The result: a sentence of three years in jail and a fine of $120,000, in addition to a forced apology on national television in Ecuador.
At first, the Ecuadorian Government was under the weird impression that Chevron hacked the emails of Ecuador President Rafael Correa, Ecuador Attorney General Diego García Carrión, and Alexis Mera, the legal secretary of the Presidency.
But now, they suspect Cléver Jiménez played a role in the collection and distribution of the emails to Chevron. If that investigation holds, the Ecuador politician faces another six years in jail.
So, Rafael Correa is willing to jail Cléver Jiménez for being a whistle-blower, but gives WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange political asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London, and considered the same for Edward Snowden, and for the leaking of classified US documents.
Think about it.
Stay tuned.