Ecuador: 5 Sentenced for Assassination of Anti-Socialist Presidential Frontrunner Fernando Villavicencio

A court in Ecuador sentenced five men and women to prison over the weekend for their participation in the assassination of anti-socialist and anti-China presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in August 2023.

Villavicencio, 59 at the time of his death, was an Ecuadorian journalist who fiercely denounced China’s colonization of Ecuador, something that the Chinese Communist Party was able to accomplish through hundreds of dubious contracts with Ecuador signed under the socialist government led by former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017). The numerous contracts allowed China to gain significant control of Ecuador’s natural resources and infrastructure.

His opposition to Correa’s socialist government and China’s influence in Ecuador made Villavicencio the target of a persecution campaign led by Correa that forced him to flee to save his life during Correa’s term, seeking refuge with an indigenous tribe in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Villavicencio’s journalistic work was crucial in exposing a vast graft network led by Correa, resulting in the former president receiving an eight-year in absentia prison sentence on corruption charges in 2020.

Correa has resided in Belgium since 2018 after fleeing from Ecuador with his wife, a Belgian national, and presently remains a fugitive.

Villavicencio ran as a candidate for the center-right Construye movement party in last year’s presidential elections on an anti-socialist, anti-China, and anti-corruption platform. He was assassinated as he was leaving a campaign rally in the capital city of Quito on August 9 after a group of assailants unleashed a hail of gunfire that also left 20 injured. Villavicencio reportedly received three gunshot wounds to the head.

One of the attackers, later identified by investigators as Johan Castillo, was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Villavicencio’s security detail. Seven other suspects subsequently arrested, mostly of Colombian nationality, were found dead in prison in October while being held on pre-trial detention.

Correa claimed shortly afterwards that the assassination of Villavicencio was part of an alleged “right-wing plot” to affect the electoral performance of socialist candidate Luisa González, but did not provide proof to substantiate his accusations. González ultimately lost against current outsider President Daniel Noboa in the October runoff election. Ecuadorian journalist Christian Zurita, who had worked with Villavicencio to expose Correa’s graft network, ran as a substitute candidate for the Construye movement, reaching third place during the first round of voting.

The Criminal Guarantees Court of the Provincial Court of Justice of Pichincha sentenced the five accused individuals to prison on Friday. Two of them received a 34-year, eight-month sentence after prosecutors accused them of belonging to the “Los Lobos” criminal gang. The other tree received 12-year sentences for their participation as accomplices in the plot against Villavicencio.

Los Lobos is one of the 22 criminal gangs that President Daniel Noboa designated as military targets in an “internal armed conflict” declaration signed in January.

According to the Ecuadorian Attorney General’s Office, Carlos Edwin Angulo Lara, a man also known as “The Invisible,” was identified as the mastermind of the murder and was the person responsible for giving the order to assassinate Villavicencio. Authorities also identified a woman woman, Laura Dayanara Castillo, as a co-author of the crime in charge of the coordination of the plot and its logistics.

Prosecutors were able to link Angulo Lara to the crime after examining a phone device dropped by Johan Castillo, the hitman slain on the day of the assassination. Investigators found text messages sent by Angulo Lara to Castillo that read, “Do it.”

Investigators also determined that Laura Dayanara Castillo was in charge of providing the vehicles, motorcycles, and firearms used in the assassination, as well as providing the pro-Villavicencio campaign clothing the attackers wore on the day of the crime.

In addition to the prison sentences, the convicted were ordered to pay reparations equal to 1,000 basic monthly salaries. Angulo Lara and Castillo were ordered to pay an additional $100,000 fine.

The three individuals who received a 12-year prison sentence were identified as Erick Ramírez, Víctor Flores, and Alexandra Chimbo.

Villavicencio’s widow, Verónica Sarauz, referred to the prison sentence as one “stage” of the process, stating that more investigations into the situation was ongoing. Prosecutors are reportedly conducting a separate investigation to determine who is responsible for requesting the assassination of Villavicencio.

In another message, Sarauz urged President Noboa on Saturday to “take care of the lives” of the recently sentenced men and women.

“I don’t want to repeat the same story that they were murdered or that they committed suicide under suspicious circumstances,” the message read. “They can still provide information to reach the real executioners and those who financed this political crime. Careful!”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.