Ecuador has opened an investigation into allegations that President Rafael Correa received campaign contributions from the Colombian guerrilla group the FARC.
Ecuador’s attorney general will investigate claims that Correa received some $400,000 in election funds from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) in 2006.
The allegations date from 2008, when Colombia attacked a FARC camp in Ecuador, killing leader “Raul Reyes” and seizing a number of his computer disks. The government said these contained proof of ties between Correa and the rebels.
The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) was invited to analyze the files, and in May 2011 released a dossier on their contents, along with many of the original documents in unedited form.
The new report provided further evidence of the alleged links between the FARC and the president. Correa has denied the allegations, saying “I would never have accepted 20 cents from an organization of that nature”.
Ecuadorian officials have questioned the validity of the information taken from the FARC leader’s computer. Vice-Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas said it is not clear whether the information was “an invention of interested parties.”
See InSight’s timeline of the revelations from the Raul Reyes computers.