EFF has been tracking the arrest, detention, and subsequent investigation of Ola Bini since its beginnings over 18 months ago. Bini, a Swedish-born open-source developer, was arrested in Ecuador's Quito Airport in a flurry of media attention in April 2019. He was held without trial for ten weeks while prosecutors seized and pored over his technology, his business, and his private communications, looking for evidence attaching him to an alleged conspiracy to destabilize the Ecuadorean government.
Now, after months of delay, an Ecuadorean pre-trial judge has failed to dismiss the case – despite Bini's defense documenting over hundred procedural and civil liberty violations made in the course of the investigation. EFF was one of the many human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, who were refused permission by the judge to act as observers at Wednesday's hearing.