Europa Press and AP

The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, July 13, 2024, p. 24

Quito. Ecuador’s justice system yesterday sentenced the perpetrators of the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, which occurred on August 9, 2023, in broad daylight in Quito, to 34 years and eight months in prison.

Carlos Angulo and Laura Castillo – leaders of the Ecuadorian criminal organization The Wolves–- were found guilty of aggravated murderfor which each will also have to pay a fine of 460 thousand dollars and compensation of 100 thousand dollars to the victim’s family.

Three other members of The Wolves: Érick Ramírez, Víctor Flores and Alexandra Elizabeth Chimbo were sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay compensation of $33,000 each.

Seven of the 13 defendants were Colombians and were killed that same year in the prisons where they were serving pretrial detention. There was no report of any progress by the ministers in identifying the mastermind.