The six alleged killers of candidate Villavicencio are found dead in an Ecuadorian prison

The six inmates killed this Friday in the Litoral Penitentiary, the largest prison in Ecuador, correspond to the six Colombians accused of taking part in the assassination of Ecuador’s presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio.

The National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Persons Deprived of their Liberty (SNAI), the state body responsible for monitoring and managing prisons in Ecuador, has confirmed the identities of the bodies after the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the police opened the prison had entered to carry out the removal. of the bodies and subsequent identification.

This six men are said to be the material authors of Villavicencio’s murdertogether with a seventh of the same nationality, the assassin who fired shots at the candidate and who died moments later, apparently as a result of the injuries sustained by the shots fired by the security personnel guarding the politician.

His death comes a few days after the United States government offered to do so reward of five million dollars to whoever provides information about the mastermind who ordered the end of Villavicencio’s life.

When he had not yet confirmed the identity of the bodies, former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) stated without hesitation that “if they are the assassins from Villavicencio, (that) confirms that The government was behind the crime“, a theory that has been maintained since the death of the journalist and former councilor occurred.

Villavicencio’s murder brought the wave of violence attributed to organized crime to unprecedented levels and has made Ecuador one of the most violent countries in the world in recent years, with a rate of 25.32 intentional homicides in 2022, the highest number since ever recorded.