Every week earlier than his homicide, slain presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio had accused Adolfo ‘Fito’ Macias of threatening him and his marketing campaign crew
Authorities in Ecuador have transferred the chief of a strong gang accused of threatening a presidential candidate earlier than he was slain to a most safety jail.
About 4,000 troopers and law enforcement officials had been concerned within the daybreak operation to relocate Adolfo Macias, additionally identified by his alias, “Fito”, on Saturday.
Macias, who’s serving a 34-year sentence for drug trafficking, organised crime and murder, heads the Los Choneros gang.
He was moved out of a jail with lighter safety right into a 150-person maximum-security jail in the identical advanced of detention amenities within the port metropolis of Guayaquil.
President Guillermo Lasso mentioned Macias’s relocation was meant for “the security of residents and detainees”.
“Ecuador will get better peace and safety,” Lasso mentioned in a publish on the social media website X, previously generally known as Twitter.
“If violent reactions come up, we are going to act with full drive.”
Ecuador has been beneath a state of emergency following the shock assassination of anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio on Wednesday, throughout a marketing campaign rally within the capital Quito.
Every week earlier than his homicide, the 59-year-old former journalist had accused Macias of threatening him and his marketing campaign crew.
Villavicencio informed native media that an “emissary” of the gang chief had contacted him and warned “that if I proceed… mentioning Los Choneros, they’re going to break me”.
Officers have blamed Villavicencio’s homicide on organised crime.
Corrections officers mentioned safety forces seized weapons, ammunition and explosives in the course of the raid to relocate Macias. Photographs they shared confirmed a bearded man in his underwear, together with his fingers on his head in some photographs and mendacity on the ground with arms tied in others.
Villavicencio’s homicide has drawn world condemnation, together with from the European Union, the United Nations and america.
On Saturday, Pope Francis rejected the violence plaguing Ecuador in a message to the Archbishop of Quito, Alfredo Espinoza.
The pope condemned “with all his power” the “struggling attributable to unjustifiable violence”.
Six suspects – all Colombian nationals whom police accuse of hyperlinks to felony teams – have been charged with the homicide and stay in custody after a decide ordered they keep behind bars because the felony investigation continues.
Veronica Sarauz, Villavicencio’s widow, informed reporters on Saturday that she holds the state straight liable for her husband’s homicide.
“The federal government nonetheless has to supply a whole lot of solutions for the whole lot that occurred,” she mentioned, after arriving at a press convention with an armed police escort and carrying a bullet-proof vest and helmet.
Additionally on Saturday, Villavicencio’s celebration introduced that his operating mate will take his place within the August 20 election.
Villavicencio’s deputy, Andrea Gonzalez, 36, is an environmental activist who has fought for the safety of oceans, forests and mangroves.
Whereas ballots have already been printed, by regulation, votes for Villavicencio will mechanically switch to the celebration candidate.
Villavicencio had been polling across the center of the pack in a discipline of eight candidates earlier than his assassination.
The snap election was referred to as after Lasso, a conservative former banker, dissolved the Nationwide Meeting by decree in Might, performing to keep away from being impeached over allegations he didn’t intervene to finish a defective contract between the state-owned oil transport firm and a non-public tanker firm.
Lasso isn’t operating within the election.
