Ecuador Police Arrest 6 Suspects Over Presidential Candidate Assassination

Former Assembly member and presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio greets supporters outside the Attorney General's Office in Quito, Ecuador, on Aug. 8, 2023. (Rodrigo Buendia/AFP via Getty Images)

Ecuador’s Ministry of Interior announced on Aug. 10 that six suspects had been arrested for the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who was shot dead at a campaign rally earlier this week.

Interior Minister Juan Zapata said that preliminary evidence indicates the suspects belong to “organized crime groups,” and the police are still investigating the motive and masterminds of the crime.

Mr. Zapata said the suspects were all of foreign nationality without elaborating further on the suspects’ identity.

“We join the pronouncement of the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, who classified this act as a political crime with a terrorist nature, an attempt to sabotage the upcoming elections,” he said in a statement.

During the raids, the police found a cache of weapons, including a rifle, a submachine gun, four pistols, three grenades, two rifle magazines, four boxes of ammunition, two motorcycles, and a vehicle reported stolen.

Meanwhile, a police report obtained by The Associated Press (AP) showed that the men were Colombian nationals, and they were captured during the raids at a residence in the country’s capital, Quito.

Mr. Villavicencio, 59, was shot and killed at a political rally in Quito on Aug. 9. Video footage on social media shows the candidate was leaving the rally at a school stadium surrounded by guards and entering a white truck before being attacked.

A woman is assisted after a mass shooting at the end of the campaign rally of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio who was assassinated in the attack in Quito, Ecuador, on Aug. 9, 2023. (AFP via Getty Images)

The candidate was reportedly shot three times, while several others were injured in the attack. Ecuador’s attorney general’s office said one suspect succumbed to his wounds while in police custody.

Mr. Villavicencio, who served as a lawmaker until May, when the Ecuadorian National Assembly was dissolved, was the candidate for the Build Ecuador Movement and was one of eight presidential candidates in the election scheduled for Aug. 20.

He was known as the anti-corruption candidate and for speaking up against drug cartels.

Mr. Villavicencio had said he was threatened by affiliates of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, one of a slew of international organized crime groups operating in Ecuador. He said his campaign represented a threat to such groups.

Patricio Zuquilanda, Mr. Villavicencio’s campaign adviser, told AP that Mr. Villavicencio reported at least three death threats to the police prior to the attack, which resulted in one arrest.

The involvement of Colombian nationals brings to mind the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, who was shot a dozen times at his private home. Among the people arrested in the case are 18 former soldiers from Colombia.

Mimi Nguyen Ly and The Associated Press contributed to the report.