The takeover of TC was "an attempted coup d'état" - 2024-03-09 02:12:29

Quito, Friday, March 8, 2024. The President of the Republic Daniel Noboa, the Minister of Attorney General Diana Salazar, at the closing of the International Consensus Conference on Penitentiary Security in Ecuador, at the Swissotel. Photos: Rolando Enríquez/API

The president of the Republic, Daniel Noboasaid, during the closing of the international seminar on security and crime, organized by the European Community, that the taking of the canal TC Televisionlast January 9was an “attempted coup d’état” by terrorist groups.

The seminar, in which the State Attorney General also participated, Diana Salazartook place on the morning of this Friday, March 8 at the SwissHotel, in Quito.

“We gave a strong blow and an important image that everyone saw, how we acted, how we did it and how we solved the problem,” Noboa said, quoted by El Universoabout how the hostages were freed an hour later without anyone being hurt.

“We saw it as an attempted coup d’état, because that was what was planned, the first two weeks of January it was going to be carried out, they tried to destabilize the Government in every possible way.but one morning I decided to declare the State of Non-International Armed Conflict, which is a decision in which one takes a lifetime,” said Noboa.

«When we entered the prisons we broke floors, walls and We find weapons – even – of better quality than our Armed Forces have. From there the crimes and hitmen were manufactured. It was their center of operations to commit crimes, their bases. Today we have changed that reality,” said the president.

Noboa also said that “all those who are allies of the criminals also carry the blood of the victims of this conflict and in this we must be very clear, there are many forms of complicity and no form of complicity will be tolerated”.

The Prosecutor’s Office has accused the leader of the Los Tiguerones gang, William Alcívar Bautista, alias “Negro Willie, of having ordered the seizure of TC, two days after the escape from the Litoral Penitentiary of José Adolfo Macías Villamar became known. alias Fito, leader of the Los Choneros gang, which occurred on Sunday, January 7, 2024.

Fito’s escape was followed by an uprising of inmates in six prisons in the country, in which 167 hostages were taken, and a wave of violence materialized in the burning of private cars from Esmeraldas to El Oro, and the kidnappings of five police officers.