Quito, Sep 21 (EFE).- A judge in Ecuador suspended Friday a preparatory hearing against former President Rafael Correa, who has been accused of masterminding an alleged kidnap attempt of an opposition politician in 2012 in Colombia.
Judge Daniella Camacho postponed the hearing until Tuesday, according to a tweet by the National Court of Justice.
The judge “suspends the preparatory hearing trial for unlawful association and abduction of Fernando Balda. The proceedings will resume next Tuesday,” read the tweet.
The judge had on Tuesday postponed the preparatory hearing to Friday to provide more time to study prosecution documents.
Besides Correa, the other five people accused in the trial were former intelligence officers Raúl Chicaiza, Diana Falcon and Jorge Espinoza; former national intelligence secretary Pablo Romero; and former intelligence chief of the police, Fausto Tamayo.
Correa, who has claimed this to be a case of political persecution and denounced the lack of judicial independence in Ecuador, is currently in Belgium.
Falcon and Espinoza have been in preventive custody since March, and Romero is in Spain.