According to authorities and his widow, Paraguayan anti-drug prosecutor Marcelo Pecci was shot dead while on his honeymoon on a Colombian Caribbean island by assailants who fled by sea.
The president of Paraguay called the crime a “cowardly murder,” while a colleague prosecutor compared the operation to “the mafia.”
According to his wife, Paraguayan journalist Claudia Aguilera, Pecci, 45, was killed by two bullets while resting on a beach on the idyllic tourist island of Baru.
On April 30, the pair married in the adjacent city of Cartagena.
“Marcelo was attacked by two men. They arrived (by water) in a tiny boat or on a jet ski; truth be told, I couldn’t see very clearly “El Tiempo newspaper quoted Aguilera as saying.
“Without saying anything, he shot Marcelo twice, one in the face and the other in the back,” she described one of the offenders.
Aguilera, who is expecting her first child, said her husband of less than two weeks had received no threats.
“Killers arrived on the beach… and attacked and murdered one of our guests,” the Decameron Hotel, where the couple was staying, said in a statement.
The reason for the murder was unknown at the time, but Paraguayan prosecutor Augusto Salas, a colleague of Pecci’s, claimed the attack was “typical of the (drug) mafia, therefore that is what I will think until the contrary is proven.”
Five homicide detectives have been despatched to Baru, according to Colombian police head Jorge Luis Vargas, who will be supported by Paraguayan and US experts.
“Information is being gathered… that will assist us in identifying those who are involved,” Vargas added.
Colombian police issued a photo of one of the alleged attackers, who was dressed in black Bermuda shorts and a beige Panama hat, late Tuesday.
El cobarde asesinato del fiscal Marcelo Pecci en Colombia enluta a toda la Nación paraguaya.
— Marito Abdo (@MaritoAbdo) May 10, 2022
Condenamos en los términos más enérgicos este trágico hecho y redoblamos nuestro compromiso de lucha contra el crimen organizado.
Nuestras sinceras condolencias a sus familiares.
On Twitter, Colombian President Ivan Duque “denounced” the assassination, expressing condolences to his Paraguayan counterpart Mario Abdo Benitez and promising “cooperation to locate those responsible.”
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“The entire Paraguayan nation mourns the brutal murder of prosecutor Marcelo Pecci in Colombia,” Benitez stated on Twitter, adding, “We condemn this horrible event in the clearest terms, and we redouble our commitment to fighting organised crime.”
