The Colombian hitmen involved in the murder of Villavicencio die in an Ecuadorian prison

The National Service for Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI) of Ecuador has reported that the six Colombian hitmen involved in the murder of the candidate for the Ecuadorian Presidency, Fernando Villavicencio, on August 9, have died in the Litoral prison, in the city of Veracruz.

The inmates have been found dead in pavilion 7 of the Penitentiary, located on the outskirts of Guayaquil, and the exact circumstances of their deaths are now under investigation.. At the moment, prison sources have indicated to the newspaper El Tiempo that the six inmates have died by hanging, without there being official confirmation in this regard.

“All the deceased are Colombian nationals and were involved in the murder of Fernando Villavicencio,” the SNAI confirmed in a statement.

“The national government condemns this fact and ratifies its political will to collaborate with the pertinent investigations in order to identify those intellectually responsible for the former candidate's crime,” the statement added.

Villavicencio was attacked and murdered by several hitmen at the end of a political rally of the Movimiento Construye party and, although the Ecuadorian Police managed to arrest these six Colombian citizens, allegedly members of a Colombian organized crime group, the investigation, supported by the FBI, continues searching identify others involved.

The SNAI had previously reported that “at approximately 4:00 p.m. on this Friday, October 6, an event occurred inside the Guayas Male Deprivation Center No. 1, pavilion 7, registering six deceased people,” as it explained. a statement published on his social network account X, formerly known as Twitter.

In the same letter, it was added that “a Criminalistics team with the support of the Armed Forces and National Police has entered to carry out the legal process corresponding to the removal of bodies and the identification of their identity.”. “At the moment police and military elements are providing protection at the site.”

Reaction of the Ecuadorian president

The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, also spoke out after hearing the news on his account on the social network of Deprivation of Liberty No. 1, in Guayaquil, I have arranged to meet immediately with the Security Cabinet.”

Lasso added in his post that he would return to the country in the next few hours to attend to this emergency and that “neither complicity nor cover-up, the truth will be known here.”

For its part, the citizen organization SOS Cárceles Ecuador has indicated that the six hitmen had requested a transfer to a more secure prison; request denied by the prison authorities, before indicating, according to reports from prison guards, that the bodies “do not show signs of torture, nor wounds resulting from any combat.”