The main suspect is her husband, who is an instructor at the police school.
Ecuadorian authorities confirmed on Wednesday the death of a lawyer who disappeared more than a week inside the main training center for police officers, where her husband was an instructor.
“I deeply regret her death, a femicide that will not go unpunished,” Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo said on his Twitter account when reporting on the death of María Belén Bernal, 34, a case that generated rejection in the Andean country.
He pointed out that police efforts will now be directed at locating Lieutenant Germán Cáceres, the lawyer’s husband and who is considered by the authorities to be the main suspect in the incident.
“I apologize and offer an apology to Elizabeth Otavalo (the victim’s mother) and her son (a minor under 13 years old),” he added.
Hours following confirming the death of the lawyer, a march of hundreds of people, especially women, paraded through the north of the country’s capital amid shouts such as “murderous police”, “femicidal state”, “police covering up the murderer” and with dozens of posters, especially with the face of the lawyer and others with the photo of the alleged murderer.
Otavalo, on his Twitter account, demanded justice: “They took my daughter from me, at the hands of a police servant, a fugitive.”
The woman was found on the Casitagua hill, near the police institution and regarding 12 kilometers north of Quito, where several hundred uniformed officers specialized in search and rescue were deployed.
According to the autopsy of María Belen Bernal Otavalo, she was murdered and the cause of her death was suffocation due to strangulation.
President Guillermo Lasso, who spoke on the day before the UN General Assembly, lamented the death. He also stated that it is necessary to fight once morest gender violence and “the disappearance of a brave woman, a lawyer, mother and daughter, should be a symbol of this challenge.”
The government offered $20,000 to anyone who provides information that leads to the whereregardings of Lieutenant Cáceres.
????#ATTENTION | The coffin of María Belén Bernal, a victim of femicide, arrives at the theater of the Central University of Ecuador, where a burning chapel was installed for her wake. pic.twitter.com/a77zsDdO0Z
– Radio Pichincha (@radio_pichincha) September 22, 2022
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