Prosecutors in Ecuador Become Latest Victims of Targeted Assassinations
ECUADOR
/19 AUG 2022 BY HENRY SHULDINER
The murder of a prosecutor in Ecuador is the latest in a series of deadly attacks on judicial officials, as criminal groups employ increasingly brazen violence against the state.
Prosecutor Federico Estrella was killed on August 15 when two subjects on a motorbike shot him outside his home in Babahoyo, the capital of the western province of Los Ríos. Authorities did not announce a motive for the killing but Estrella had been investigating several violent murders in the city, according to broadcater Teleamazonas.
The Ecuador Attorney General's Office condemned such attacks against its employees in a statement on August 16. Estrella's murder came less than three months after a former prosecutor in the eastern port city of Manabí, Luz Marina Delgado, was killed alongside a colleague when gunmen shot at their vehicle, leading to a car crash. The Latin American Federation of Prosecutors (Federación Latinoamericana de Fiscales - FLF) also expressed its dismay at the killing, stating that such attacks weakened democracy in Ecuador.
Officials have not specified the motive behind the attack. Delgado was a prosecutor in a case against a high-profile drug trafficker, Washington Prado Álava, also known as "Gerald" and the "Ecuadorian Pablo Escobar." Police suspect Venezuelan and Colombian hitmen collaborated with locals in Ecuador to coordinate the assassination, according to local press.
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https://insightcrime.org/news/ecuadorian-prosecutors-latest-victims-targeted-assassinations/