2024-03-21 09:32:51
Prosecutor Ana Hidalgo pointed out Carlos A., alias ‘Invisible’, as the direct perpetrator of Villavicencio’s murder. She also pointed out his accomplices.
Six people are part of the evaluation and preparatory hearing for the trial for the murder of Fernando Villavicencio, former presidential candidate. These are the six alleged hitmen and coordinators of the crime.
Judge Irene Pérez set up the hearing, on the morning of February 27, 2024, on the third attempt. Previously, the hearing had not been able to be set up due to changes in lawyers and last-minute requests from the defendants’ defense counsel.
During the proceedings, the Prosecutor’s Office is expected to present a formal accusation against the defendants and present the elements collected in the prosecutor’s instructions stage. Based on these indications, the Judge must decide which ones advance to trial and which ones are dismissed.
One of the defendants is Carlos Edwin AL, alias ‘Invisible’, who has been identified by the Police as the leader of a faction of Los Lobos and the “main mentalizer” of the murder of Villavicencio, on August 9, 2023.
Hearing was suspended
Around 7:00 p.m., after several hours of this procedure, the preparatory hearing for the trial was suspended. The diligence will be reinstated this Wednesday the 28th, at 10:00, at the North Judicial Complex, the Prosecutor’s Office reported. In this phase, before a decision by the judges, the defense lawyers of the 6 defendants are expected to intervene.
Authors and accomplices
In her accusation, prosecutor Ana Hidalgo pointed out Carlos A., alias ‘Invisible’, as the direct perpetrator of Villavicencio’s murder. That is, who gave the order for the hitman from the Cotopaxi Prison. Laura C.
She was identified as a co-author of the crime, since she was in charge of providing logistics to the hitmen and planning the murder. Both are mentioned by the Public Ministry as leaders of Los Lobos.
While Erick R., Víctor F., Alexandra Ch. and Óscar F. were accused as accomplices to the murder. They would have been dedicated to surveillance and planning activities for the crime that occurred on August 9, 2023.
After the presentation of the accusatory opinion, prosecutor Hidalgo announced the evidence she will present at trial. Now it depends on Judge Irene Pérez if she accepts that ruling and calls the six defendants to trial, and whether she favors the dismissal of any of them.
Judge declares validity of trial
After listening to the defendants and the Prosecutor’s Office, Judge Irene Pérez said that this is not the procedural moment to rule on expertise. She added that justice cannot be resigned for formalities.
For this reason, he declared everything that had been done up to this point valid. Now, the Prosecutor’s Office will begin the presentation of the formal accusation against the six defendants.
Reserved proceedings
Gastón Toro, Carlos A.’s lawyer, stated other alleged grounds for annulment. He said, for example, that the Prosecutor’s Office issued impulses requesting confidential proceedings, which is not supported by law.
And that in the first five days of the case, several of the defendants were defenseless, since the Prosecutor’s Office did not notify the Public Defender’s Office. Hidalgo responded that these proceedings were requested in a confidential manner, since this guaranteed the obtaining of information that served to link new people to the investigation for the murder of Fernando Villavicencio.
Mislabeled phone
In the first part of the trial preparatory hearing, Judge Pérez gave way to the interventions of the defense lawyers on possible defects and annulments in the investigative stage of the murder of Fernando Villavicencio.
The lawyers of Laura C. and Óscar F. did not present any type of argument. But the lawyers of the other four defendants requested a declaration of annulment due to several alleged defects. Ramiro Paredes, lawyer for Víctor F. and Erick R., said that the case should be annulled, due to a problem in the procedure for obtaining evidence.
Specifically, I am talking about the phone that supposedly belonged to David C., one of the alleged hitmen who died the night of the murder. Gastón Toro, Carlos A.’s lawyer, also mentioned that phone number.
According to the lawyers, that phone is an iPhone A1778. But in the chain of custody he was entered with the code A17178. Therefore, the extraction of information was done from a “phone that does not exist.”
Furthermore, according to Toro, when the authorities realized the error, the phone model was ordered to be corrected. But the information extraction skill was not repeated, but rather the same one that was done initially was used.
Prosecutor Hidalgo, in her reply, accepted that there was an error in the labeling of the telephone, at first. But when this problem became known, a name correction was requested, but it was not ordered that the expertise be repeated because it was not necessary.
By: PRIMICIAS