QUITO— Five of the six suspects for the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio will go to trial, the judge ruling on this case that shocked Ecuador in August of last year, days before the elections, ruled on Wednesday.
Among those prosecuted is Carlos Angulo, one of the leaders of the Los Lobos criminal organization, whom the prosecution points out as the coordinator of the crime from a maximum security cell in a state prison.
Laura Castillo will also go to trial, who is accused of being a co-author because she obtained and delivered the vehicles, weapons and money used for the murder, according to the prosecutor’s office in a message on X, formerly Twitter.
The other three defendants will be tried as accomplices, while a fourth was released from responsibility.
The intellectual authors of the murder on August 9 of Villavicencio, 59, known for his denunciations against corruption and links between politics and organized crime, have not been named.
He was attacked with heavy-caliber weapons when he got into his vehicle when the then-candidate was leaving a rally in the north of the capital.
One month after his murder, Seven of the 13 detainees were murdered inside the prisons of Guayaquil and Quito, where they were in preventive detention..
According to the Prosecutor’s thesis, Angulo, in his capacity as leader of a faction of the Los Lobos criminal group that operated in the south of the capital, was the organizer of the crime, which was recorded in messages to cell phones.
Villavicencio was one of the eight candidates registered for the presidential race in August.
“Government corruption”
The former assemblyman was also a figure recognized for having denounced in the past various cases of alleged government corruption that led to ministers and other high officials in prison, especially from the government of former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017).
Before his death, he had reported threats from organized crime.
