MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguayan Justice minister sacked for granting privileges to convicted terrorists

Criminal Policy Vice-Minister Daniel Benítez has been appointed as the new Justice Minister on an interim basis

Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez Tuesday sacked Justice Minister Edgar Taboada Insfrán, barely eight hours after swearing him in.

Taboada had allowed Osvaldo Villalba's coffin into the El Buen Pastor women's prison where Villalba's sister Carmen is housed.

Osvaldo Villalba was a leading member of the Paraguayan People's Army (EPP) guerrillas, who was gunned down by law enforcement officers during the weekend. Carmen Villalba is one of the group's founding members.

Read also: Paraguayan guerrilla leader gunned down

Around one hundred people accompanying Villalba's body stood in front of the main entrance of the prison demanding the entry of the coffin, before the burial in the Recoleta de Asunción cemetery, just a few meters away.

“The entry of a coffin into a penitentiary center is a situation not foreseen in the Law, and after the corresponding analysis, the decision was taken to remove the official,” Presidential Cabinet Chief Hernán Huttemann told reporters.

Prison Warden Marian Vázquez was also dismissed. She claimed she had acquiesced to the Villalbas' petition to avert a riot threat.

Villalba was killed Sunday, along with two other EPP fighters, in a clash with the Joint Task Force (FTC) in a rural colony in Pedro Juan Caballero, department of Amambay.

Carmen has been at El Buen Pastor since 2004 for kidnapping, in addition to an attempted homicide conviction when she tried to escape in 2020 but was later recaptured.

Taboada Insfrán had been sworn in Tuesday morning as the new Justice Minister to replace Edgar Olmedo, who was appointed as representative of the Executive Branch before the Council of the Magistracy (CM).

Criminal Policy Vice-Minister Daniel Benítez has been appointed as the new Justice Minister on an interim basis.

Authorities also confirmed Carmen Villalba is to remain at the El Buen Pastor prison after rumors that she would be transferred to the Social Rehabilitation Center (Cereso), in the city of Cambyretã, Itapúa, where her sister Laura Mariana Villalba Ayala, also a member of the EPP, is detained.