FBI arrives in Ecuador to support investigations into the crime of Fernando Villavicencio

A US federal police team arrived in Ecuador to support the investigations being carried out by the police authorities and the prosecutor’s office to determine the responsibilities in the assassination of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicenciothe South American country’s interior minister said on Sunday.

Villavicencio, a former congressman and former corruption investigative journalist, was shot at as he was leaving a campaign event Wednesday night. For the case to date there are six people arrested.

“The FBI commission is already in the country, it has made contact with the national police, in the next few hours there will be a tripartite meeting with the attorney general’s office, which is the head of the investigation to determine the scope of collaboration and support. ”, Interior Minister Juan Zapata told reporters.

The official highlighted the arrest of the alleged perpetrators, but assured that they will deepen the investigations to capture other people involved.

The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, announced this week on the social network X, formerly Twitter, that he had requested support from the US federal police (FBI, for its acronym in English) to investigate the murder of the presidential candidate.

Lasso said that the agency had accepted the request and that the mission would arrive in the next few hours, without offering further details.

For his part, the director of Investigation of the Ecuadorian police, Alain Luna, said that support was requested from Interpol Colombia to provide the records of the detainees.

The prosecution does not rule out asking for international help

Quito police said this week that one suspect killed and six others arrested for the candidate’s murder are Colombians, while they search for the “intellectual authors” of the homicide.

The suspect, who died of injuries sustained in a shootout, had previously been arrested on weapons-related charges, the government said on Thursday, while the detained Colombians belong to organized crime groups.

Villavicencio died of head trauma, hemorrhage and a brain laceration caused by a bullet, according to the autopsy cited in the charging documents. He also suffered a skull fracture.

Violence in Ecuador, which will hold presidential elections on August 20, has increased in recent years, especially in cities along drug trafficking routes such as Guayaquil and Esmeraldas.

Prepared with information from Reuters