Both entered the Penitentiary this year. They were in pavilion 5, where the largest prison massacre in the country was recorded, on September 28.
Mario León Mata and Manuel Torres Ipanaqué, aged 29 and 28, called each other ‘cousins’ without having a blood tie. They were friends, neighbors from the Guayaquil suburb who met again this year – after three months of not seeing each other – in pavilion 5 of the Penitentiary. There they photographed together and promised, according to Mario’s uncle, to take care of each other. But they couldn’t, they were killed September 28, during the largest prison massacre in the country.
Both arrived at this center on different dates, but for the same crime: the theft of a cell phone. Manuel entered in January. He was sentenced to two years in prison – according to the process – for assaulting a woman with a firearm, in 29 and Q. He and another subject stripped her of her phone and her wallet, before escaping on a motorcycle.
While Mario was accused of stealing a taxi driver’s cell phone in April, says his uncle Edison, who claims his nephew spent five months in prison without a sentence. The preparatory trial hearing was deferred, according to the process, twice before he was assassinated.
His uncle believes that drug addiction led him to steal. A year and a half earlier, in February 2020, Mario was arrested for alleged drug trafficking when he found 34 envelopes with 5.7 grams of cocaine in his purse. But, three months later, they found him not guilty after it was confirmed that he had been a consumer since he was 15 years old.
His family tried several times to take away ‘that demon’ in rehabilitation clinics and with prayer. His grandmother, who prayed to God for his healing, placed an altar with religious images on the head of his bed, which today is disarmed in the corner of the room.
In that space that Mario left, his uncle criticizes the “deaf ears” of the prison staff, because – he assures – they already knew what was going to happen. The last time he contacted his family was on September 28, at 10:30 p.m., in the middle of the gang confrontation.
He seemed to be running, tired, agitated, gunshots were heard, explosions, until the call was cut off
Édison León, Mario León’s uncle.
“He seemed to be running, tired, agitated, gunshots and explosions were heard, until the call was cut off,” recalls his uncle Edison of that call his sister had with Mario.
On the other hand, Manuel’s mother, Argentina Ipanaqué, did not know what was happening to him. Her son Manuel did not tell her anything about what he lived in prison, but in each call he cried out: ‘Mom, get me out of here, I don’t want to be here anymore,’ she says, her eyes wet.
‘Trébol’ was killed 103 days after serving his eight-month sentence
Manuel, like Mario, was also found innocent for drug trafficking in 2017 when his addiction status was confirmed. And in 2018, Manuel served four months in prison for the crime of receiving.
During the eight months of this year that he was detained, his mother visited him only once, on September 24, days before his death. They hugged, talked and photographed each other. The ‘cousin’ Mario captured that image that he treasures on his cell phone, which he always leaves at home to avoid being robbed.
He does not want to lose, he says, the last memories of his son, whom he looked for in the health houses in the hope of finding him alive: “I pretended to be in hospitals that I was under (high) pressure to enter and use one of those boys who do cleaning. I gave them for the queues to find out about me and they found out that I was not ”.
I pretended to be in hospitals that I was under (high) pressure to enter and use one of those guys who do cleaning. I gave them for the queues to find out and they found out that I was not
Argentina Ipanaqué, mother of Manuel Torres.
Due to his addiction to drugs, Victor fell into a prison system that did not protect his life
She was looking for him, because during her four-day pilgrimage to the Penitentiary, Samanes Park and the Crime Laboratory, they told her that her son was listed as “absent.”. They explained to him that they searched in this way the prisoners who had escaped from their ward.
But it was not like that. His hope vanished on Saturday, October 2, when they came to identify his body. They recognized him from the child’s drawing of Tazmania on his leg and from other tattoos on his arms.
Manuel was killed with a stab in the back. “Thank God he was whole,” says his mother, wiping her tears, remembering the youngest of her children, her spoiled, who before being arrested brought him breakfast at home. He did it daily, he says, before opening his business to sell plastic items on the sidewalk of his home.
Abel Carrera’s mother claims that her son was murdered when he lacked two months to regain his freedom
Mario was also attacked from behind. He had cuts on the nape and on the back, laments his uncle, whose family gave Manuel’s mother a black T-shirt with the printed photo of the two friends, a black ribbon and the phrase “There are no words to describe how sorry I am for your loss.”
Both, prisoners in the vice of drugs when they were free, are part of 64% of those arrested for minor crimes that between 2018 and 2021 have been murdered in prison.
“I want justice to be done,” demands Manuel’s mother, who left five children orphaned. For this mother, the pain is still intact. “It is not compared to anything,” says Argentina, clinging to the voice of her son that he hears every night on his cell phone before going to sleep. (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.
