The request for Correa’s detention was filed by the country’s chief prosecutor on Tuesday. The prosecution is accusing Correa, who served as the president of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017, of being involved in the kidnapping of Fernando Balda, a former opposition lawmaker, in 2012 in Colombia - charges that Correa denies.
Balda himself was charged with orchestrating a foiled coup attempt in 2010. The charges were filed when the lawmaker was in Colombia, from where he was eventually deported to Ecuador in 2012 and served a year in prison for endangering state security.
Correa, who is living in Belgium with his family, is up in arms over the court’s ruling, arguing on Twitter that the request to put him in custody was made without “a single piece of evidence.”
Rafael Correa was replaced in power by his former ally Lenin Moreno in April last year, after a close-call election. At the time, Correa welcomed Moreno’s victory as a “triumph of the revolution.”
However, the two have since fallen out, with Correa describing Moreno as a “traitor” and “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” after the latter proposed a constitutional referendum to limit the number of presidential terms, thus barring Correa from seeking re-election in 2021. The referendum held on 4 February 2018 ended in a victory for the Moreno government, with the majority of Ecuadorians voting to introduce the changes.
Moreno has signaled there will be a U-turn in Ecuador's foreign policy from Correa’s anti-American posture, to a more pro-US foreign policy. Moreno signed a security agreement with the US in April of this year.
