Carlos Valencia was sentenced to 5 years in prison for attack and resistance. He appealed the sentence, but – after being murdered in prison – the judge set the date.
The urge to urinate made Carlos Valencia Cruz stop his way back home at midnight on Saturday, November 28, 2020. And he never returned alive. His wife, Mónica Cedeño, recognized his body among those who were massacred in the Litoral Penitentiary in the riot of September 28, 2021.
Valencia, a 31-year-old master welder, left his home, at 27 and B, in the suburb of Guayaquil, heading for East Mapsingue. It was ten o’clock at night. Minutes earlier, he had called a friend who lived in that sector to borrow a welding machine. At the last minute, he had gotten a “cachuelo” in Posorja, he declared in his judicial testimony.
“He worked for the Hidalgo Hidalgo company for several years, he left by his own decision, because he wanted to be independent, he was with contractors,” says his wife, Mónica, surrounded by one of their five children, on the portal of an apartment that she rents, but whose owner, out of solidarity, has forgiven her rent these months.
Valencia, according to the records of the Social Security Institute, was a welder for that construction company a decade ago. I was making $ 376 a month then.
He was returning with the welding machine when he asked the taxi driver Boris Párraga to stop the car to urinate. Another of his friends who was traveling with him, Kevin Pazmiño, accompanied him to urinate.
That’s what they were – the testimonies point out – when two men approached them that night of November 28.
– Carlos, two gentlemen are coming from the right side, said Kevin, according to the judicial process.
– Don’t worry, nothing happens, let’s urinate and that’s it, Carlos Valencia Cruz replied.
“As the man comes, he begins to insult us. My partner Valencia says: And this one? He insults him and he also insults him, he hit him, from there I struggled with the other man and at that moment the man takes out the gun and Valencia and I stare at each other, not knowing what happens. Valencia gets in the car, I get in the car and from there we advance about 50 meters, when the man begins to shoot ”, said Kevin at the hearing on May 31 of this year. That day, he and Valencia were sentenced to 5 years in prison as perpetrators, and the taxi driver was sentenced, as an accomplice, to half the sentence.
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The three were accused of the crime of attack and resistance to authority, article 283 of the Comprehensive Organic Penal Code (COIP). The men with whom they insulted, struggled and fought were policemen who dressed as civilians, who belonged to the Anti-kidnapping Unit (Unase) and who at that time were investigating the kidnapping of Heriberto Glas, brother of former Vice President Jorge Glas.
They never identified themselves as the National Police, because they had been in civilian clothes and that they had been in this operation of a kidnapping of I don’t know who, and they take out the weapon and what they do is climb, and the persecution begins
Monica Cedeño, widow of Carlos Valencia.
“They never identified themselves as the National Police, because they had been in civilian clothes and that they had been in this operation of a kidnapping of I don’t know who, and they take out the weapon and what they do is climb, and the persecution begins,” claims the widow From Valencia.
The version of the two Unase policemen, Óscar Herrera and Steven Pita, points out that it was Valencia and his friends who unreasonably insulted and attacked them. “A blue Chevrolet Optra vehicle passes us, some individuals get out, one of them proceeds to shoot and the moment the other comes, he approaches me, takes out a gun, hits me with the handle on the head and there were my other companions, in the surroundings, they proceeded to neutralize the citizens meters later, obtaining their apprehension ”, declared Pita.
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The three, Valencia, Párraga and Pazmiño, were detained in wing 5 of pavilion 5 of the Litoral Penitentiary to serve their sentences. And there they were when the September massacre hit them.
“They (Párraga and Pazmiño) did manage to run, but my husband did not, because he had tuberculosis, he was on serum, my husband was skinny, he would never be able to run,” says his wife. remembering that on the Tuesday of the massacre her husband called her at 11:23 pm. “Crying, he told me to take care of my children, that he loved them, to take care of them a lot. ‘Black, I love you’, he told me, and the shots were heard, the bullets, there he did not call again, “he recalls.
Crying, he told me to take care of my children, that he loved them, to take care of them a lot. ‘Black, I love you’, he told me, and the shots were heard, the bullets, there he did not call again
Monica Cedeño, widow of Carlos Valencia
The body was handed over to him four days later, on Saturday, October 2. “His head was… they had destroyed it, with a tube, several blows. The death certificate says that he died of a cranioencephalic trauma, his face was sunken, I watched him packed ”, explains Mónica Cedeño.
She recognized him in the crime lab for a tattoo of a snake from Dragon Ball Z that her husband had on his chest, as well as two initials of their children’s names on two fingers of his left hand.to. “He had three burned fingers, the initials M and V were barely visible,” said Mónica Cedeño.
In the judicial process, it appears that Carlos Valencia’s lawyer filed an appeal against the sentence. On October 25, when he had already been killed in prison, the criminal judge handling the case set the date for the appeal hearing: March 9, 2022, at 09:30. (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.
