Former Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso denies link to Villavicencio's murder. Quito, Nov 23 (EFE). - Former Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023) rejected this Saturday the statements of the Prosecutor's Office's protected witness Marcelo Lasso Saavedra, made within a judicial process underway in the United States, which links him to the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Marcelo Lasso Saavedra, a former prison mate of the deceased drug trafficker Leandro Norero, testified remotely that the former president and his brother-in-law, Danilo Carrera, would have financed the crime, as heard in a video circulating on social networks. Villavicencio was murdered on August 9, 2023, after a political event in the north-central part of Quito, and according to Lasso Saavedra, Wilmer ChavarrÃa, alias Pipo, the leader of 'Los Lobos', Ecuador's most powerful criminal gang, who was recently arrested in Spain, would also be involved in the case. 'That a criminal, convicted and confessed, personal assistant to drug trafficker Leandro Norero, who also claims to make false statements out of fear, money, or to reduce his sentence, now appears with a fabricated statement - this time trying to tarnish my reputation - is only a crude attempt to divert attention' from the investigation into Villavicencio's murder, the former president said on his X account. And he asserted that 'the truth overwhelms such a false narrative. Starting with the fact that the false witness says that, 'hearsay', he supposedly knows that this murder was orchestrated to prevent the publication of the fable called 'El Gran Padrino', when it had already been published many months before,' he noted. Last year, Carrera was sentenced to ten years in prison after being found guilty of organized crime for having led a corruption network to influence contracts with public companies during Guillermo Lasso's administration. This emerged from the investigation of the 'Encuentro' case, a name given by the Prosecutor's Office, although it was initially called 'Gran Padrino' by the digital medium La Posta, which revealed the corruption plot. In response to the witness's statement, the former president recalled that while he was president, he requested the collaboration of the FBI to investigate Villavicencio's murder independently. 'I am not going to let them drag me into the sewers where subjects of that ilk move comfortably. They are wrong when they mess with me.'
