The six inmates killed on Friday in a Guayaquil prison were the suspects in the August assassination of a leading presidential candidate, Ecuadoran officials confirmed. 

They "are of Colombian nationality and were accused of the murder of the former presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio," the SNAI prisons authority said in a statement after Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso announced he was at least temporarily calling off a visit to Seoul and returning from a trip to New York to handle the incident.