ISN'T THAT CONVIENIENT
Our Foreign Staff
Fri, 6 October 2023
Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead at a campaign event in Quito on August 9 - REUTERS
Six people accused of assassinating an anti-corruption presidential candidate in Ecuador were killed in prison on Friday.
The suspects who were implicated in the attack in August on Fernando Villavicencio were killed at a jail in the Guayas province, Ecuador’s prisons agency, SNAI, said.
Ecuador’s government condemned the killings which come barely a week before a crucial run-off election.
President Guillermo Lasso pledged “neither complicity nor cover-up” in getting to the bottom of the crime, in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Here the truth will be known,” he said.
Mr Lasso announced he was calling off a visit to Seoul and returning from a trip to New York to handle the incident.
Our Foreign Staff
Fri, 6 October 2023
Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead at a campaign event in Quito on August 9 - REUTERS
Six people accused of assassinating an anti-corruption presidential candidate in Ecuador were killed in prison on Friday.
The suspects who were implicated in the attack in August on Fernando Villavicencio were killed at a jail in the Guayas province, Ecuador’s prisons agency, SNAI, said.
Ecuador’s government condemned the killings which come barely a week before a crucial run-off election.
President Guillermo Lasso pledged “neither complicity nor cover-up” in getting to the bottom of the crime, in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Here the truth will be known,” he said.
Mr Lasso announced he was calling off a visit to Seoul and returning from a trip to New York to handle the incident.
A woman wounded in the attack on Fernando Villavicencio - GETTY IMAGES
The killings took place in Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, the South American country’s largest city.
SNAI said in a statement the six men were all Colombian nationals. It gave no more details of the killings.
The government has said authorities are determined to identify those behind Mr Villavicencio’s murder.
Mr Lasso previously suggested Mr Villavicencio was the victim of a gang assassination.
Mr Villavicencio, a prominent journalist, was gunned down less than two weeks before a first-round general election.
Police arrested the six Colombians on the day of the assassination. A seventh suspect, also Colombian, was shot and killed by police, while other suspects were later arrested.
The US agreed to send FBI agents to assist Quito officials with the investigation.
Business heir Daniel Noboa, who holds a narrow lead in some polls ahead of the run-off, said in a social media post that the government must provide details of what occurred at the prison and that peace must be restored in the country.
His main rival for the presidency is Luisa Gonzalez, a protege of leftist former President Rafael Correa. She has said that surging crime is unprecedented and that voters should not allow “terror” to stop them from voting for change.
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