2023-08-17 01:32:52
Journalist Christian Zurita worked with Fernando Villavicencio on his investigations into corruption in Ecuador. Now, after the assassination of the presidential candidate, he will replace him in the elections on Sunday, August 20, with the Construye movement.
On August 9, Zurita wrote on the social network X “They killed my friend”, he did so before the news spread widely that Villavicencio had been riddled with bullets by hitmen as he left a rally at a school in quit.
LOOK: Who is alias ‘Fito’, the leader of Los Choneros who threatened the assassinated Fernando Villavicencio
Christian Zurita, 53, had been working on Fernando Villavicencio’s electoral campaign.
A few years ago, both had worked on the corruption case for which former President Rafael Correa was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison.
Last Saturday, the Construye movement nominated the environmentalist Andrea González, who was part of Villavicencio’s formula, as a candidate for the Presidency, but on Sunday he changed the decision due to fear that the electoral norms would invalidate it and designated Zurita as the replacement.
Christian Zurita speaks during a press conference in Quito on August 13, 2023. (Photo by MARTÍN BERNETTI / AFP).
Construye said that he consulted the National Electoral Council (CNE) about Andrea González’s candidacy, but there was no response.
Zurita and González appeared together on Sunday wearing bulletproof vests. Both complained that the CNE prevented them from participating that day in the only official debate before the elections.
On his candidacy, Zurita said that “we could not allow under any circumstances that the non-presence of Fernando after his heinous and vile crime could be lost.”
“Fernando literally assured that we are not going to sit down to negotiate with any mafia… We are not going to do it,” he said. “Vengeance against the mafias in this country will be to vote for Fernando Villavicencio,” he added.
Who is Christian Zurita?
Born in Quito on April 4, 1970, Christian Zurita has a long career in journalism, especially in the field of investigation. He has specialized in issues of corruption, organized crime and drug trafficking.
According to a profile released by the Construye party, in his 30-year career he has worked in media such as Vistazo Magazine, Teleamazonas, Expreso newspaper and El Universo. He also founded the sites MilHojas.is y InvestigativeJournalism.com.
At Teleamazonas, between 2002 and 2008 he was head of the 24-Hour News Investigation Unit.
In 2008 he went to work in the newspaper Expreso, of which he was its Investigation editor until 2011.
After Expreso, he was hired by the newspaper El Universo, where he conducted investigations focused on issues of corruption, organized crime, and drug trafficking.
Zurita has received the National Journalism Award in 2009 and 2019, the Jorge Mantilla Ortega Award, the data journalism award from the Inter-American Press Association (SIP) and TRACE, for his regional collaborative work.
He is also co-author, along with the journalist Juan Carlos Calderón, of the book “El Gran Hermano”, for which Rafael Correa took him to trial.
Investigative journalists and authors of “El gran hermano” Juan Carlos Calderón (right) and Christian Zurita speak during a press conference for the launch of their book, on March 24, 2011. (Photo by RODRIGO BUENDIA / AFP).
In this text they denounce favoritism in the awarding of State contracts towards Fabricio Correa, brother of the former president.
In 2012, the courts ordered them to pay one million dollars each for “moral damage” to Rafael Correa. Then the case was archived at the request of the former president.
In the profile released by Construye, it is stated that Zurita and Villavicencio shared a friendship from university classrooms, and were “partners in the fight against corruption and mafias, through journalism.”
Both wrote the book “Arroz Verde. The bribery industry”, from 2019, where they reveal how public officials and members of Rafael Correa’s party managed bribes and kept accounts of millions of dollars in bribes.
“Thirteen reports collected in a single book detail precisely how national and international companies installed presidents in Ecuador, the same ones that were awarded contracts in the public sector. La Fuente and Milhojas verified in a complex investigation that Odebrecht and other multinationals did put presidents in Ecuador. ‘Green Rice’ shows that we had a decade of illegitimate governments that knelt before dozens of mafia companies from the private sector”, is mentioned in an article published in InvestigativeJournalism.com.
Fernando Villavicencio at a rally in Quito minutes before he was assassinated. (Archyde.com).
homicide record
More than a week after the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, nothing is known about the intellectual authors of the crime.
The police arrested six Colombians who would be involved in the murder, while a seventh subject died on the same Wednesday, August 9, after being arrested by the authorities.
Days before his death, Villavicencio denounced that alias Fito, leader of the criminal organization Los Choneros and who is in jail, had threatened him.
Saturday. Fito was transferred from Guayaquil Zone Number 8 Deprivation of Liberty Center to another maximum security facility called La Roca.
The criminal, imprisoned since 2011, is serving a 34-year prison sentence for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.
Villavicencio’s murder occurred in a context of increasing violence generated by organized crime and drug trafficking in Ecuador, where hit men are one of the most recurrent high-impact crimes.
Ecuador’s National Police has registered 3,568 violent deaths in the first six months of this year, well above the 2,042 for the same period in 2022. That year, the country ended with 4,600 homicides, the highest number in the history of the country. country and double that in 2021.
Homicides in Ecuador. (AFP).
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