7
took his sister Margarita to visit her husband twice a week. In addition to visiting his
brother-in-law, he devoted all his time to arrangements for securing his release,
such as retaining attorneys and seeing to other formalities. It being a drugs case,
the attorneys were unwilling to take it on, so that numerous visits had to be made
before he eventually found one who would.
b.
Testimony of Margarita Ramadán de Suárez, wife of Rafael Iván SuárezRosero
In June 1992 she was living in Quito with her husband, who worked as a security
agent at the firm of Challenge Air Cargo. They have one daughter born in 1994. On
June 23, 1992, she learned that Mr. Suárez-Rosero had been arrested. She tried to
contact a lawyer the next day and went to the Comisión Ecuménica de Derechos
Humanos [Ecumenical Human Rights Commission] (CEDHU) to seek help and
discover how her husband was. During one of her early visits to his place of
detention, she wrote a few words in a note and gave it to an officer, who later
handed her a very brief note in which she recognized her husband's handwriting.
She received his clothes every night and was struck by the fact that they always
smelled strongly of damp. During the entire month that her husband was held
incommunicado she tried to find an attorney and did so three days before the official
police report was issued. She was not aware that she could have had access to a
public defender nor did she know how many public defenders there were in Quito in
1992. In her view, the attorney was not guilty of the delaies in the case nor of lack
of interest, and her brother helped with the arrangements. She was seldomly
allowed to write to her husband between June 23 and July 28, 1992; she would
scribble a few lines on the outside of the bag in which she sent his clothes. On July
28, 1992, she saw her husband for the first time since his arrest. She was allowed
to visit him twice a week from then on. Mr. Suárez-Rosero was released on April 29,
1996; the order for his release had been ready 15 days before but was not executed
because the officials charged with doing so kept forgetting and delaying matters.
She has had a difficult time as a result of this Case; her husband is sometimes
extremely depressed or suffers sudden mood swings.
c.
Testimony of María del Carmen Aguirre-Charvet, former official of the
Ecumenical Human Rights Commission (CEDHU)
In June 1992 she was working in the legal department of the Ecumenical
Commission. Margarita Ramadán made contact with her on June 24, 1992 or
thereabouts. She helped her look for Mr. Suárez-Rosero and, to that end, spoke
with Leonardo Carrión, Adviser to the Minister of the Home Office. Since this yielded
no results, she presented an official note to the Adviser, who told her that she could
not even leave the note in his office since the case was drug-related and he informed
her that Mr. Suárez-Rosero would be incommunicado for approximately one month.
d.
Testimony of Rafael Iván Suárez-Rosero, alleged victim in this case
He never saw an arrest warrant. He was apprehended in the early hours of June 23,
1992, together with Mr. Nelson Salgado, by two hooded individuals traveling in an
unmarked vehicle, who informed him that he was being arrested in connection with a
report that the occupants of a "Trooper" were burning drugs in the Zámbiza ravine.
They were taken to the Interpol offices, where they were placed in the cells at the
back. He never saw or discovered the name of the person who had made the report.
He had never taken part in the acts imputed to him. He was not allowed to inform