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Ecuador’s interior minister quits after prison riots
QUITO, March 6, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Ecuador’s interior minister resigned
Friday in the wake of simultaneous riots in four prisons that left 79 people
dead.
“It is my own personal decision to submit my irrevocable resignation as
minister,” Patricio Pazmino said in a letter to President Lenin Moreno, which
was made public on Twitter.
Pazmino, a reserve police officer, said his “management at the head of the
ministry has been questioned,” without giving further details.
On Monday, the National Assembly called for the removal of Pazmino, as
well as the head of the police and the prison service.
Pazmino’s resignation came a week after the riots, which Moreno called an
outbreak of “barbarism.”
Authorities said the riots were triggered by clashes between rival
criminal gangs vying for power and which are allegedly linked to Mexican and
Colombian cartels.
Pazmino said he was also resigning for health reasons, saying he had been
diagnosed for a second time with Covid-19.
He said this added complications to a serious disease which he did not
identify but which he said exposes him “to an enormous risk and the
impossibility of continuing” in office.
Pazmino came to office last November after the removal of then-minister
Maria Paula Romo over the use of expired tear gas canisters during violent
protests in October 2019.
BSS/AFP/SSS/0909 hrs