‘TERRORISM’

6 Colombians Arrested After Ecuadorian Presidential Candidate’s Assassination

The six detained Colombians all had ties to organized crime, according to Ecuador’s interior minister.

Six Colombian nationals have been arrested in connection with the assassination of a presidential candidate in Ecuador Wednesday, according to officials. All six were detained in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, where Fernando Villavicencio had been campaigning on Wednesday before his murder. Two suspects were taken into custody near the event, while the others were captured in other parts of the city. At least one other suspect was fatally shot in the chaos that followed Villavicencio’s assassination, authorities said. Interior Minister Juan Zapata said that the suspects had links to organized crime, but did not go into further detail, according to Colombia Reports. Villavicencio, a former journalist, had been an outspoken critic of both organized crime and the state officials tied to it. In a televised statement on Thursday, President Guillermo Lasso called the incident “a political crime, terrorism,” adding, “It is no coincidence this happened days before the first round of voting,” according to The New York Times.