Ecuador Names New Interior Minister

QUITO, Ecuador — Heinz Moeller Freile, a 50-year-old lawyer, will succeed Luis Robles Plaza as Ecuador’s interior minister, Information Minister Marco Lara announced Friday.

Robles Plaza resigned Thursday night, three days before national elections. He said in a television address that he was ending his political career because he did not want to cast a shadow over elections on Sunday, in which Ecuadoreans vote for a new president, vice president and members of congress.

Robles Plaza had defied a congressional resolution urging him to resign for alleged complicity in torture, arbitrary arrests and disappearances during his 3 1/2 years in office. He denied the charges.