An Ecuadorian court on Friday sentenced a gang member to nearly 35 years in prison for plotting and ordering from his cell the murder of a journalist turned anti-corruption presidential candidate.
Five people were handed hefty prison sentences for their role in the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, who was shot dead last year just before the country’s election.
Gang member Carlos Angulo, 31, was given 34 years and eight months in prison for planning and ordering the murder, the sentence read out in court said.
Photo: Reuters
Laura Castillo, received the same for providing weapons, money, vehicles and motorcycles to the Colombian assassins who fatally shot Villavicencio on Aug. 9 last year as he was leaving a rally in Quito.
Villavicencio, a former investigative journalist who vowed to combat political corruption and drug trafficking, was killed days before the first round of voting in the presidential election.
Six Colombian men were arrested hours after the shooting, but all of them were killed while in prison two months later. Seven additional suspects were later arrested, one of whom died and another who was acquitted. The remaining five went on trial.
Accomplices Erick Ramirez, Victor Flores and Alexandra Chimbo were sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Flores handled security for the motorcycle on which the assassin who shot Villavicencio was traveling, while Chimbo was in charge of alerting the killers about the candidate’s departure. Ramirez did logistics work.
Some of the suspects were accused of ties to “Los Lobos,” one of the main gangs in Ecuador fighting for control of the drug trade that has led to a spike in violence in the past few years within the small South American country.
A witness who testified during the trial claimed there was a US$200,000 bounty on Villavicencio’s head due to his campaign against gangs and corruption.
The witness also said the suspects were working for individuals tied to the administration of former Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa, who is in exile after he was convicted on corruption charges in 2020.
Correa, who lives in Belgium, denies any link to the assassination.
“We need to know the whole truth and make sure this is not repeated again,” Amanda Villavicencio, daughter of the assassinated candidate, wrote on X.
Outside the court, relatives and supporters chanting slogans held up posters written “jail for cowardly murderers” and pictures of Fernando Villavicencio.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS