Ecuadoran ex-policeman jailed for extrajudicial killings
He said a total of 13 former police have been convicted for their roles in the incident.
QUITO (AFP) - A former Ecuadoran police officer has been jailed for 16 years for his role in extrajudicial police killings that left eight dead and four missing, the attorney general told AFP.
Ecuador s National Court of Justice sentenced Mario Cevallos over the execution-style killings during a police response to a hold-up at a pharmacy in Guayaquil in November 2003, attorney general Galo Chiriboga said.
He said a total of 13 former police have been convicted for their roles in the incident, which has been classified a violation of human rights.
Members of an elite police force, the officers intervention left eight dead -- an employee of the pharmacy, a customer and six presumed suspects -- and four missing.
After an internal investigation, the police exonerated the officers, saying there had been a confrontation with the suspects, but no evidence to support that story was presented to the court.
"This is a trial in which the victims have demanded justice for 12 years and today they got it," Chiriboga said.
He noted, however, that the main officer accused in the killings has not yet stood trial because he remains a fugitive and has fled to the United States.
