Ecuador said six men murdered in a Guayaquil prison on Friday were suspects in the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, as the killings prompted President Guillermo Lasso to cancel an overseas trip.
All the dead were Colombians, according to Ecuador’s national agency that oversees the welfare of incarcerated people. Lasso called an emergency security meeting after the deaths and canceled an official visit to South Korea.
Villavicencio, an anti-corruption campaigner, was gunned down on Aug. 9, two weeks ahead of the first round of the presidential election after he pledged to get tough on cocaine-smuggling mafias. His killing highlighted the growing power of organized crime that has made the nation one of the world’s most violent.
The trigger man who shot the candidate was injured by a policeman and bled to death the night of the murder while in custody.
Read more: What a Candidate’s Assassination Means for Ecuador: QuickTake
The runoff vote between businessman Daniel Noboa and socialist candidate Luisa Gonzalez is taking place on Oct. 15. The campaign has been dominated by debate over how to deal with the soaring drug violence that has led Ecuador’s homicide rate to overtake those of Colombia and Mexico.
More than 400 people have died in riots in Ecuador’s prisons since 2020.
(Updates with death of assassination suspects from first paragraph.)
