Ecuador: They claim that the murder of Fernando Villavicencio was planned from prison

The Attorney General’s Office Ecuador On Tuesday he asked for six suspects involved in the murder to be tried assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in August last year. According to him, his death was planned in a maximum security cell by an organization linked to the criminal group Los Lobos.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, The order to kill Villavicencio came from Latacunga prisonlocated in the Andean province of Cotopaxi, about 70 kilometers south of Quito, and controlled by Los Lobos until a month and a half ago, when the Armed Forces definitively entered to regain control of the prison facility.

The hearing, which lasted all day, was convened at the Prosecutor’s Office underlined Carlos Angulo, alias Invisibleone of the members of said gang, as he was held responsible for having ordered the murder of the candidate.

He also pointed out Laura Castillo as alleged co-authorand attributed to him the obtaining and delivery of vehicles, weapons and money for the execution of the crime, perpetrated on August 9, a few days before the presidential elections.

He accused the other four of being accomplices, although the intellectual perpetrator of the assassination was not identified.

The hearing was adjourned after almost eight hours to continue with the defendants’ defense on Wednesday.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, he is the perpetrator of the crime he coordinated the murder via cellphone from his cellin which he had high-speed Internet and other luxuries, with the gunman who ended Villavicencio’s life.

On Wednesday the judge will have to decide whether to accept the prosecutor’s request and call the five Ecuadorians and one Colombian linked to this case to trial. This is the third hearing, the first two did not take place because some defendants changed lawyers or appealed at the last moment.

The judicial complex where that session took place had a strong external police contingent at its disposal since the early hours of the morning. Inside the room specialized officers searched for explosives or any other threat.

What was the murder of Fernando Villavicencio like?

The crime occurred eight months ago, when Villavicencio recognized him reports of corruption and links between politics and organized crimehe was leaving a rally in the north of the capital and was attacked in the street with large-caliber weapons as he boarded his vehicle.

A month later, seven inmates were murdered in the prisons of Guayaquil and Quito, where they were in preventive detention.

The killing, amid a rise in drug-related violence, occurred outside the Anderson School Coliseum in the financial center of Ecuador’s capital.

Villavicencio, 59 years old and one of eight candidates registered in last year’s presidential race, was the only presidential candidate who, by his own decision, did not benefit from the police custody that the Government offered to all candidates.

He had publicly and recently denounced, on repeated occasions, that he had received death threats against him and his electoral team. According to him, the person responsible for the intimidation was the leader of a local drug trafficking group that allegedly had relations with the Sinaloa cartel.

He was also a recognized figure for having previously exposed several cases of alleged government corruption that led to the imprisonment of ministers and other senior officials, especially from the government of former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017).