Ecuador removes top security officials after killings of 7 suspects linked to presidential candidate’s assassination
- The shakeup comes after the seven inmates accused of murdering candidate Fernando Villavicencio were killed in two prisons
- Ecuador’s prosecutors are investigating the prison agency amid calls by two presidential candidates for information on the killings
Ecuadorean President Guillermo Lasso has announced a shake up of the high ranks of the security forces following the killing of seven inmates accused in the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
He removed two officials, the prisons director and the head of the police investigations unit, and replaced the head of the national police with Cesar Augusto Zapata Correa, a long-time member of the force with nearly 35 years of experience.
The announcement came after six inmates were killed at the Litoral Penitentiary on Friday and another was killed in a Quito prison on Saturday.
Another prisons official in charge of the prison where the six were killed was taken into custody for questioning, according to the president’s announcement on Saturday. Lasso also ordered the transfer of six inmates implicated in Villavicencio’s murder for their security.
Violence, blamed by the government on drug gangs, has sharply increased in Ecuador in recent years and the latest killings seemed to underline rising lawlessness.
Ecuador’s attorney general’s office also launched an investigation into the country’s prison agency, the office said earlier on Saturday.
