2024-01-17 23:24:00
The General Prosecutor’s Office of Ecuador announced on Wednesday the murder of prosecutor Cesar Suarez, responsible for the fight against organized crime in the province of Guayas. He was investigating a hostage-taking at a television headquarters in Guayaquil last week.
Published on: 01/18/2024 – 00:24
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Cesar Suarez, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation into the irruption of armed men live on the set of an Ecuadorian public television channel on January 9, briefly taking journalists and other employees hostage, was murdered, the prosecution announced on Wednesday January 17.
According to the prosecution, the murdered prosecutor was in charge of determining which gang had carried out this assault.
Local media broadcast images of the prosecutor’s car with several bullet holes in the driver’s window.
“In response to the murder of our colleague César Suarez… I will be categorical: organized crime groups, criminals and terrorists will not stop our commitment to Ecuadorian society,” Attorney General Diana Salazar said in a video posted on X.
When corruption and drug trafficking come together, we have a real cancer in society. This case reminds us that we cannot give up and that together we can rescue the country from the hands of crime. We will not allow impunity! https://t.co/MuzHGDfVnI
— Diana Salazar M. (@DianaSalazarM2) December 14, 2023
A country in shock
Last week, the live irruption of heavily armed, hooded men, pinning journalists and employees of the TC channel to the ground under threat in Guayaquil (Guayas province, southwest), shocked the country faced with a wave of violence triggered by drug gangs.
Also read: Ecuador, the former South American haven of peace that has become a failed state
Amid the gunfire, the broadcast of these surreal images continued live for several minutes, despite the lights on the set going out and the camera freezing. Until apparently the police intervened shouting “Police, police”.
Thirteen attackers were arrested, without causing any casualties, and their faces presented to the press a few days later.
This assault on a TV set occurred shortly after the escape of the feared leader of the Choneros gang, Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito”, the starting point of a new episode of violence in the country ravaged by drug trafficking. Several mutinies and hostage-taking of guards have affected various prisons, relayed by frightening videos broadcast on social networks showing captives threatened by the knives of masked inmates.
The gangs sowed terror in the streets of the country before more than 20,000 soldiers were sent to restore order, with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declaring the country “at war”. More than 200 prison officials held hostage by mutineers were released. Violence in the country has left at least 19 dead.
Guarantors of justice threatened
Prosecutors are under threat from the twenty or so criminal organizations operating in Ecuador, once a haven of peace ravaged by violence after becoming the main export point for cocaine produced in the neighboring states of Peru and Colombia. .
In June, prosecutor Leonardo Palacios was killed by gunmen in the town of Duran, neighboring Guayaquil.
Diana Salazar reported direct death threats from Los Lobos, one of the main criminal organizations, whose leader, Fabricio Colon Picole, also escaped from prison last week.
Ecuadorian justice attacks criminals but also corruption linked to drug trafficking which has penetrated even the mysteries of the State.
The so-called “Metastasis” affair, “the biggest in history against corruption and drug trafficking” in Ecuador, according to the prosecutor, revealed at the end of last year “a criminal structure” involving prosecutors , prison officials and police officers “whose objective was to obtain impunity and freedom for those prosecuted or convicted” as well as to introduce prohibited objects into prison.
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