Prosecutor shot dead while investigating armed assault on live TV broadcast
Cesar Suarez was shot in the head as he left his office yesterday.
A top Ecuadorian prosecutor who was investigating an armed attack on a TV station earlier this month has been shot dead.
Cesar Suarez was gunned down in a professional hit as he drove through the port city of Guayaquil this afternoon.
He was shot in the head after leaving his office to attend a court hearing.
Suarez worked in a specialist investigative unit set up to combat transnational organised crime.
He had been involved in several high-profile criminal probes and had recently been tasked with investigating the terrifying live TV hijack police brought to an end on January 9.
Hooded gunmen burst into TC Television in Guayaquil and fired off shots while employees were broadcasting.
Ecuadorian journalist Jose Luis Calderon, who was live on air when the drama occurred, revealed after it was over that the intruders stuffed his jacket with an improvised explosive and threatened to kill him if police arrived.
The South American nation’s attorney general’s office later confirmed 13 people were arrested after heavily armed police stormed the building and were set to be charged with terror offences.
Suarez had told an Ecuadorian newspaper in an interview a day before he was killed that he didn’t have police protection despite quizzing the 13 suspects to try to find out who had ordered the attack.
The country’s Attorney General Diana Salazar said after learning of the state prosecutor’s murder: ‘I am going to be emphatic.
‘The groups of organised crime, the criminals, the terrorists, will not stop our compromise with Ecuadorian society.’
The attack on TC Television was one of the first major criminal acts Ecuador suffered after the January 7 prison escape of gang boss Adolfo Macias, alias Fito, and president Daniel Noboa’s subsequent decision to impose a state of emergency.
The fugitive, leader of a gang called Los Choneros, remains at large.
The TV studio raid has been blamed on another gang called Los Tiguerones which has been linked to the kidnap of British millionaire businessman Colin Armstrong last month.
The 78-year-old former honorary consul for Guayaquil was released on December 20 after several days in custody and nine suspects subsequently arrested.
Suarez was killed as he drove along an avenue called Avenida del Bomberos.
Pictures published in local media showed the window on the driver’s side of his car had been left riddled with bullets.
The huge upsurge in violence in Ecuador in recent years has been blamed on its increasing importance as the outlet route for cocaine produced mainly in Peru and Colombia.
Domestic drug gangs in Ecuador have allied with bloodthirsty Mexican cartels.
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