Asuncion, December 6 (EFE). – Paraguayan prosecutors have assassinated Armando Rotela, leader of the Rotela clan, an organization that local authorities link to drug trafficking, over a February 2021 riot at Tacumbú prison in Asunción in which eight inmates were murdered and more than twenty guards were taken hostage.
The indictment, which also reached eight members of this organization, was brought for the alleged crimes of “intentional killing, hostage-taking, prisoner mutiny, criminal organization, all as perpetrators,” the State Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The investigative authority also asked a surety criminal court to “transfer the case to an oral and public hearing.”
The State Department is investigating the events of February 16 and 17, 2021, when incidents occurred in Tacumbú following a decision to transfer a prisoner to another center, which caused “discontent” among a group of prisoners who are members of the Rotela clan.
The prosecution’s investigation, according to the note, indicates that the eight defendants, under Rotela’s command, set fire to mattresses and caused destruction to “incite a riot that led to the taking hostage of at least twenty prison officers.”
“Rotela gave direct orders to execute several inmates who were attacked with knives and sometimes beheaded,” the prosecution alleges.
The prosecution’s evidence includes intelligence reports, video analysis, autopsies, forensic examinations, fingerprint studies and witness statements.
In February 2021, the then Minister of Justice, Cecilia Pérez, assured that the uprising was a reaction against the transfer of a prisoner, after an alleged escape plan was uncovered that would have allowed several prisoners to escape.
When the riots occurred, Tacumbú prison was one of the largest and most overcrowded in the country.EFE