Zürcher Nachrichten - Colombia detains alleged mastermind of Ecuadoran candidate assassination

Angel Aguilar is suspected of ordering the killing of Fernando Villavicencio, a former journalist turned anti-graft campaigner who was well placed in opinion polls ahead of the vote.

He was killed by gunmen riding motorcycles on August 9, 2023 as he left a campaign rally in Quito.

Aguilar was arrested at Bogota's airport upon arrival from Mexico, on charges of membership in Los Lobos ("The Wolves"), Ecuador's largest drug trafficking gang.

He was also charged over his "alleged role as the mastermind" behind Villavicencio's assassination, Colombian authorities said in a statement accompanied by photographs of the drug lord in handcuffs.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro hailed the arrest on X, calling Aguilar "one of the world's most notorious murderers."

"This outcome...confirms the efficacy of trilateral cooperation between Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico," said Petro, a leftist who has been embroiled in an escalating feud with his right-wing Ecuadoran counterpart.

Villavicencio's shooter was shot dead by the victim's bodyguards, and police later arrested six Colombians allegedly linked to the attack, but all were killed in detention.

In July 2024, Ecuador handed down jail terms of up 34 years to five suspects accused of involvement in Villavicencio's killing.

Another dozen people are currently on trial over the killing, which shook Ecuador's political landscape in an election that Noboa won with a promise to take a tough stance on drug trafficking.

Aguilar had previously received a 20-year jail sentence in 2013 for murder, according to Colombian authorities.

"However, after serving half his sentence in 2022, a judge granted Aguilar parole, a benefit he allegedly used to commit a slew of other crimes, some abroad," immigration authorities said.

The arrest comes two days after Petro accused Ecuador's military of dropping a bomb on the Colombian side of the border, during an operation linked to President Daniel Noboa's gang crackdown.

Noboa, an ally of US President Donald Trump, denied on Tuesday that Ecuador was operating on Colombian territory, while accusing Petro of failing to stop gangs from crossing the border.

Ecuador is "bombing locations that served as hideouts" for criminal groups that are "largely Colombian, and which your government allowed to infiltrate our country due to negligence regarding your border," Noboa, addressing Petro, wrote on X.

Petro on Wednesday insisted that the device in question was "not rusty" and too heavy to have been dragged there, while his air force chief told a press conference that the bomb had likely "penetrated just meters into Colombian territory" by accident.

In 2008, Ecuador and Colombia nearly went to war following an airstrike ordered by then-Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Ecuadoran soil that resulted in the death of a commander from the now-defunct FARC guerrilla group.

H.Roth--NZN