The long-rumoured theory of the existence of secret police has been verified, says Ecuador’s attorney general. Since the 1980s people have spoken of a clandestine unit, SIC-10, based in Quito and responsible for the murders and disappearances of political opponents of the right-wing government of the time. Officials from that era have always denied the existence of a secret police. 

Now, attorney general Galo Chiriboga says his office has discovered a definitive list of names and aliases of police officers assigned to the SIC-10 between 1984 and 1989, as well as the unit’s chain of command.
The trove of information came when the AG confiscated the National Directorate of Judicial Police’s archives, as a part of their investigation into human rights abuses in the 1980s.

SIC-10 is believed to be behind 136 human rights violations, which left more than 456 victims. These 136 cases are being investigated by a Truth Commission that Ecuador struck in 2010. Chiriboga says this new find does a lot to forward those investigations.

The documents seized from the Judicial Police also contain the SIC-10’s blacklist of alleged subversives, says Chiriboga.

Former agents and commanders who were suspected members of the SIC-10 have always denied the existence of that unit and their involvement with any of the the extrajudicial executions, sexual, psychological, and physical violence attributed to the secret police.

Chiriboga has not released any of the names that appear in the new documents. His investigation is ongoing.

Original story