Six Suspects in Ecuador Assassination Are Killed in Prison
Suspected hit men charged in the killing of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio have died in prison under mysterious circumstances, days before the country chooses a new president. Six Colombian men charged in the assassination of an Ecuadorean presidential candidate were killed Friday in prison in Ecuador. The slayings prompted President Guillermo Lasso to cancel a trip to South Korea and return to Ecuador to address escalating violence in the country of 18 million people. The killings came days after the U.S. offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of the masterminds of the killing of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio after he left a campaign event in August. Ecuador is on track to register a homicide rate this year of more than 40 per 100,000 people, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
公開済み : 2年前 沿って Ryan Dubé の World
Members of the army leaving the Litoral Penitentiary complex in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Friday, when six inmates of the prison were killed.
Six Colombian men charged in the assassination of an Ecuadorean presidential candidate were killed Friday in prison just days before voters are to cast their ballots for president in a country buffeted by drug-fueled violence.
The slayings prompted President Guillermo Lasso to cancel a trip to South Korea and return to Ecuador to meet with cabinet members Saturday to address escalating violence in the country of 18 million
“Neither complicity nor a coverup, we will know the truth,” Lasso wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The killings came days after the U.S., which deployed FBI investigators to work with Ecuadorean prosecutors, offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of the masterminds of the killing of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio after he left a campaign event in August.
Ecuador’s penitentiary institute in a statement didn’t say how the six inmates were killed in a notorious prison in the city of Guayaquil that is packed with inmates accused of drug crimes. The Attorney General’s office said it was working to determine the cause of the deaths and had also launched an investigation into the management of the prison, the Litoral Penitentiary. An earlier order to relocate the suspected hit men, who were housed in Cellblock 7, because of security concerns hadn’t been fulfilled. From 2020 through 2022, 458 people have died in prison massacres in Ecuador, human rights groups say.
The six men were arrested in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, after the assassination of Villavicencio, a former journalist and congressman who had pledged to go after drug traffickers and organized crime if elected. In an exchange of gunfire with police moments after the assassination, police killed one gunman, who authorities said was from Cali, Colombia. Prosecutors haven’t explained the use of Colombian hit men in the operation to kill Villavicencio.
The killing of Villavicencio—the first time a presidential candidate had been assassinated in Ecuador—brought international attention to the rapid rise of violence driven by a surge of cocaine smuggled from neighboring Colombia through Ecuador before heading north to the U.S. and Europe. Powerful prison gangs have been battling for control of trafficking routes, police say.
Ecuador is on track to register a homicide rate this year of more than 40 per 100,000 people, according to government data, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The country had a homicide rate of less than 6 per 100,000 people in 2018.
The increase in bloodshed comes as Ecuador prepares for a second-round presidential vote on Oct. 15 after Lasso called early elections in May to avoid impeachment by opposition lawmakers. The vote pits Daniel Noboa, heir to a banana fortune, against Luisa González, protégé of leftist former President Rafael Correa.
“What we are living through in our country isn’t normal,” said Gonzalez after news of the prison killings swept Ecuador. “There isn’t any precedent for this.”
Noboa, who has a slight lead over Gonzalez in some polls, called on the government to provide information about what occurred inside the prison.
“We are going to recover the nation of peace that we all long for,” he said in a statement.
トピック: Ecuador