The Paraguayans bid farewell this Sunday to the prosecutor Marcelo Pecci, victim of an attack by unknown persons in Colombiaand who is today a symbol of the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking in his country.
A vast caravan of vehicles accompanied the hearse through the places closest to the affections of the prosecutor, who died last Tuesday on a beach in Colombia, where he spent his honeymoon with his wife, Claudia Aguilera.
The first stop in the procession was the stadium of the official’s favorite club, Guarani. There, the Paraguayan flags mixed with the gold and black banners of the Asunción group.
Fans wearing team shirts and waving white handkerchiefs singly greeted the passing of the coffin of Pecci, whose body arrived in Paraguayan territory on Saturday after being transferred on a commercial airline from Cartagena de Indias with a stopover in Panama.
The line of cars led by three white hearses then went to the parish of San José, which was the scene 15 days ago of his marriage to Aguilerawho is expecting a baby.
Next He was taken to Colegio San José, where Pecci graduated in 1995.
The caravan, which was part of the Parque Serenidad Memorial, finally arrived at the Recoleta cemetery, one of the main ones in Asunción and where dozens of historical figures of the country rest. His remains were buried in his family vault.
“WE WILL MISS IT”
“He did not give up, he fulfilled his duty, “said Francisco Pecci, in a few words in front of the coffin of his son, whom he says is considered a hero, a patriot or a martyr. “Anyway,” he added, “people in general, people understand that they killed him, unfortunately they killed him, because he annoyed a lot of people with his honesty “.
Although he admitted that many are asking for justice, he was hurt that the victim’s life was not returned by anyone.
“At 45, they have shortened the life of a righteous and honest man,” lamented this man, who hopes that his son’s legacy and honesty will serve as a consolation to him. “You’re going to go down in history,” predicted the father, looking for anecdotes in his memory.
A WOUND
also this sunday The Archbishop of Asunción, Adalberto Martínez Flores, referred to what he considered the “brutal murder” of Pecci and asked that the moral and material perpetrators of the act be identified, “so that the full weight of the law be applied to them”.
“This heinous crime should not be considered an isolated case,” warned the prelate, who described what happened as a deadly wound “in the hearts of all Paraguayans.”
In his homily during a Tedeum for the 211 years of the country’s independence, attended by the Paraguayan President, Mario Abdo Benítez, the hierarch affirmed that this criminal act “requires the adoption of all legal measures” to its clarification.For the death of Pecci, who was part of the Unit specialized in the fight against drug trafficking, Abdo Benítez decreed three days of mourning, which led to the lowering of the national flag during the commemoration of the ‘Independence.
The Colombian police, who are working jointly with the Paraguayan and the American, are investigating as a first hypothesis that Pecci was murdered because of his work as a prosecutor.
He was a prosecutor in various cases, including the one that led to the extradition to the United States, in November 2018, of the Brazilian of Lebanese origin Mahmoud Ali Barakat for his alleged relationship with a money laundering network from the drug trafficking and other possible crimes.
More recently, he was in charge of investigations into an attack last January at a concert in which two people died, including model and “influencer” Cristina “Vita” Aranda, and four others were injured.
With information from EFE
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