Juan Carlos Calderón (left) was of the view that such compensation is disproportionate and pointless. AFP

• Money that WINS will head a project to protect a reservation in the Amazon

The judge ordered to pay two million dollars to the mamdatario

QUITO, ECUADOR (07/FEB/2012)-A Ecuador Court has sentenced two journalists to pay two million dollars to the President of the country, Rafael Correa, on a book about alleged his brother with the State contracts, and another $100,000 to his lawyers.

Such compensation is added to another 40 million should receive the newspaper El Universo if the national court of Justice Ecuador ratified this week sentence in another lawsuit for slander.

CORREA said he will direct the money who wins in both cases the “Yasuní-ITT” project, which seeks to protect a nature reserve in the Amazon.

Sentenced reporters are Juan Carlos Calderón and Christian Zurita, who in his book “The big brother” detailed contracts which supposedly was the brother of the President, Fabricio Correa, through companies, some of them “role” with the State and formed abroad.

The key point of dispute is whether Rafael Correa knew or not of such contracts. Journalists keep Fabricio told them that Yes, while the representative what it denies.

The ruling, known today officially says that at that point “missed checking and plurality of ‘information’” and that to include this statement in the book journalists “emit value judgments and are erected judges without having such quality”.

Therefore the Court of first instance condemns them to pay to strap a million dollars each, over 100,000 dollars for their attorneys in fees.

Calderón was of the view that such compensation is disproportionate and absurd”, and a form of” embolsicar is (Pocket) two million dollars without working “, at a press conference that announced together with Zurita that apelarán sentence.

Calderón also emphasized that during the trial “have found no evidence that confirmatory statements” of the book.

The non-governmental organization Fundamedios, widely criticized by Correa, neglecting the condemnation of an “extremely serious attack on freedom of expression” and an attempt to silence journalists who report cases of corruption.

Through your account Twitter Correa said he would be “delighted” in cancel the lawsuit against reporters “just acknowledge they lied.” “Otherwise has a name: impunity”.

Alambert Vera, one of his lawyers, conviction reveals that they published “a big lie” in the spirit of “benefit” and “harming the honor” of the ruler, as he told Efe.

According to Vera, journalists failed to “basic principles of journalistic investigation, as the comparing sources” and the sentence is “a very good history, a triumph of democracy”.

For its part, Fabricio Correa, who was rated as “the main political rival of the President”, considered an “abuse” and a sample of a “politicized justice” sentence.

Today told Efe that the law prohibits that a relative of the President “on a personal note contracts” with the State and emphasized that he never them had personally.

In the book, journalists “put that there are contracts with businesses allegedly linked to Fabricio Correa (of the State), and that is not a crime”, said.

He said that his brother is informed of everything he does because it has police custody 24 hours for their protection, as a relative of the President.

“The President knows my activity”, but “that if knows what my customers?” “I do not think who knows, at this level,” he said.

While the proceedings against Calderón and Zurita is in its early stages, demand of strap against the universe by insults nears the end.

On Friday the national court of Justice will hold a hearing, at the end of which will have to decide if it ratifies or revokes the sentence to three years in prison and to pay $ 40 million issued by two lower courts against three major directors of the Rotary and exeditorialista Emilio Palace.

The case revolves around a column in which Palace said that a future President could prosecute strap “for having ordered fire at discretion” against the hospital in which he took refuge during a police mutiny in 2010 and that it was released in the middle of a firefight.

Palacio told Efe on Miami tomorrow he requested asylum in United States, while Correa lawyers today asked the Court that runs the judgment against him. EFE