For now, the Police have already managed to identify 48 of the 62 inmates killed in the latest massacre.
A van loaded with plastic tubes, sacks of cement and jars of paint was waiting on the morning of Wednesday 17 at the main entrance of the Zonal Deprivation Center 8. Workers were waiting to access the premises of the La Roca prison, where work is carried out. adequacy.
There, workers said that they work on various fronts, such as painting courts, installing pipes for bathrooms and building several walls. They are part of the progress of that prison that was established as a maximum security prison when its construction was completed in 2008. Since 2013 it has been closed.
Precisely, as part of the actions in the face of the prison crisis, Fausto Cobo, head of the SNAI, declared that the ground floor of that prison is already enabled and that approximately one hundred inmates would be transferred to that prison.
In parallel, in the Litoral Penitentiary, located about 500 meters from the Zonal 8 Deprivation Center, the official said that about 1,000 soldiers and police officers are located on the inner edge of the twelve pavilions and in the so-called “death row” , a space that divides them longitudinally.
“We are operating. It is a complex issue. We are not mercenaries nor are we criminals to enter into operations with a clean bullet. When the circumstances are of a tacit threat it is necessary to intervene, it is necessary to shoot ”, indicated.
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On the other hand, the official, who entered the prison wearing a bulletproof vest, acknowledged that the seizure of the weapons that would have been used in the massacre that took place between last Friday and Saturday night is still pending. That episode caused 62 deaths. “We are going to do it, at the right time; not by force, with a clean bullet, because we are not criminals, “he said.
Since the afternoon of last Wednesday, death row has been occupied by military and police teams, and operations were also carried out to destroy towers that were used by the inmates. In addition, with the support of heavy machinery, the removal of debris and weeds is carried out in the interior and exterior spaces of the prison complex, especially the outer perimeter that borders the banks of the Daule River.
Cobo also, during an interview in Teleamazonas, argued that the police and guides cannot use weapons inside the pavilions, and also asked that the possibility of communication inside the prison be blocked and that legal measures be lifted that prevent them from acting with “greater rigor.”
Yesterday, outside the Litoral Penitentiary there was a lower flow of relatives of inmates who were looking for news about their relatives who are serving sentences in that prison.
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As in previous days, several inmates managed to regain their freedom on the morning of this Wednesday the 17th. Upon their departure, they were comforted by relatives who were waiting for them on the outskirts. This was the case of Ángel A., 24, who held up a Bible and then hugged his father, Walter, in tears.
He said that he spent three years in jail for aggravated robbery and that in recent months he was in the Provisional Detention Center, after being transferred from ward 5, where there was the massacre last September. “I would never want to go back. Thank God, I sincerely felt at a time that I would never see him again. Grateful to God, who gave me another chance ”, said the young man, moved.
On the other hand, Alexandra Ortega and two relatives hoped to start the process so that her 23-year-old nephew Luis could be released after nine months of the year of conviction for carrying a weapon. Due to economic problems, the relative said that they hoped to have the advice of a defender to obtain the release of the prisoner, who is still in ward 8. They were unable to deliver supplies that they hoped to deliver to the prisoner. “He has no clothes, no shoes, everything has been lost. They are just passing him food, because they were not passing him, “said another of those close to him.
As part of the actions to reduce overcrowding in prisons, months ago the Government announced that some 2,000 pardons would be processed for inmates of the elderly, disabled or with catastrophic illnesses.
For now, in the Laboratory of Criminalistics and Forensic Sciences, the work for the recognition of corpses continues. Until this Wednesday the 17th, a total of 48 bodies have been identified: 41 by fingerprints, 2 by anthropology and 5 by both processes. Likewise, 43 corpses have already been handed over to their families, and a group of 14 bodies remains to be identified. (I)
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
