Ecuador deports Swedish developer Ola Bini, citing classified security report

Ecuadorian authorities ordered Swedish software developer and security researcher Ola Bini deported after detaining him in Quito, relying on what his defense says is a classified security report it was not allowed to review. Bini’s lawyer, Carlos Soria, said the order also carries a 10-year ban on returning to Ecuador, though no public copy of the migration resolution had been posted as of Friday.

Bini, a Swedish national who has lived in Ecuador for years, was intercepted in Quito on Thursday by people who identified themselves as immigration or police agents and taken to migration offices, according to his lawyer and multiple Ecuadorian news outlets. Authorities told him his residency visa had been revoked and that an administrative deportation process had been opened, his defense said, but no written order or supporting resolution was shown at the time, according to the defense and local reporting. His legal team then filed a habeas corpus petition seeking to protect his liberty and halt the deportation, according to Ecuadorian outlets that cited the filing in the SATJE judicial registry.

Authorities told the defense the case was based on a classified, or “reserved,” report alleging that Bini represents a risk to public security and the state structure, Soria said, but the defense said it was not allowed to see the report itself. An administrative hearing was held Thursday evening. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and local human rights observers said outside observers were denied entry, and EFF said the hearing was suspended after several hours because no interpreter was available for Bini. Despite the habeas filing, Bini was moved to Quito’s airport under an immediate deportation order, according to EFF, Primicias and Bini’s own social media post. As of the cited reporting, authorities had not released a detailed public explanation or published the text of the migration resolution or the classified report.

“Thanks to everyone for the support. I’m now at the airport surrounded by cops. A secret report says I’m a threat to Ecuador, so I was deported immediately, without the judge even waiting for the Habeas Corpus that was filed before the hearing,” Bini wrote in an early Friday post on X cited by Primicias and Telesur.

Several Ecuadorian outlets reported that Bini was to remain at the airport while his lawyers and Swedish consular authorities arranged emergency travel documents.

The case is likely to draw renewed international attention because Bini is a prominent free-software developer and security expert whose legal troubles in Ecuador have been closely followed for years by digital-rights and human-rights groups.

Bini was arrested in Quito in April 2019 in a case that drew global notice because of its timing around the Julian Assange and WikiLeaks fallout. In the criminal case, tied to allegations of unauthorized access to telecommunications systems, he was unanimously acquitted in 2023 by a lower court. But an appeals court reversed that ruling in April 2024 and sentenced him to one year for attempted unauthorized access, according to Ecuadorian reporting.

His defense now says that criminal case had effectively expired under the statute of limitations and that earlier precautionary measures had already been lifted. Those claims had not been matched Friday by any detailed public government statement on the deportation decision.

Ecuadorian media have also reported other recent visa revocations and expulsions based on classified “informes reservados,” making the use of secret security reports in migration decisions a recurring due-process issue in the country.