Ecuador: Government Rejects Accusation of Villavicencio Murder

Ecuador's government on Friday rejected accusations of alleged responsibility in the August 9 murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio during a campaign rally in northern Quito.

RELATED: 
Ecuadorian President is Denounced in Villavicencio Murder Case

The complaint for "willful omission" reaches President Guillermo Lasso, the Minister of Interior, Juan Zapata, and authorities of the National Police. It was filed before the Prosecutor's Office by the family of the deceased and by a candidate to the National Assembly.

"For the National Government it is unacceptable to consider that the actions of the President of the Republic, the Minister of the Interior (Juan Zapata) and the General Commander of the National Police (Fausto Salinas), regarding the security of Fernando Villavicencio, have been 'premeditated,' with the purpose of abandoning a presidential candidate," said Lasso's administration in a statement to the public opinion. 

The Executive asked "not to politicize the case and allow Justice to move forward with the investigations" to clarify the facts surrounding this "repudiatory crime." 

The tweet reads, "The Government rejected the complaints filed by the Villavicencio - Valencia family and by the candidate to the Assembly, Edison Carrillo, against Lasso, Zapata and Salinas, for willful omission in the murder of Fernando Villavicencio."

"It is only fair for democracy, for society, for the candidate's family and for the memory of Fernando Villavicencio, for whom the National Government has always held the highest consideration and deepest respect," the statement added.

The Government said it understood the suffering caused by the assassination of the candidate, an event it described as "tragic" and which, it added, has undermined democracy in Ecuador.

It also affirmed that from the moment the crime was known, it set in motion all the mechanisms for the investigation to advance and to find the material authors, already arrested, and the intellectual authors of the assassination.

Complaint against the Government

The lawyer of the Villavicencio family, Marco Yaulema, denounced failures in the police protocol to guarantee the security of the candidate, who was shot three times in the head when he was getting into a vehicle after the rally.

According to the lawyer, the case could be considered as "a State crime" since "there was no intelligence, there was no previous sweep, there was no adequate protection" at the moment of the candidate's exit from the event.

The Prosecutor's Office arrested six Colombians, who are in preventive custody, for their alleged involvement in the murder of the presidential candidate. The 59-year-old politician and journalist was running for the early elections this Sunday, August 20, for the center-right Construye Movement.