http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story. ... e=2/4/2007

Man sought in Ecuador killings in U.S. custody
Associated Press
Last updated: 3:12 p.m., Sunday, February 4, 2007

PALENVILLE, N.Y. -- A suspect in the 1999 assassination of a leftist former Ecuadorean presidential candidate was handed over to U.S. immigration officials in upstate New York on Sunday.

Christian Steven Ponce, 36, of Quito, Ecuador, was arrested Saturday afternoon in the hamlet of Palenville on the eastern edge of the Catskills during a routine traffic stop. He was pulled over for not wearing his seat belt, but a check of his North Carolina drivers license and warrant check showed he was wanted in Ecuador in connection with murder, Greene County Sheriff's Deputy Greg Stewart said Sunday.

Officials say Ponce was wanted in Ecuador in connection with the killing of Jaime Hurtado and his two assistants. Hurtado, a Marxist congressman and former presidential candidate, and the two assistants were shot dead outside Ecuador's Congress on Feb. 17, 1999.

Two days later, police said they had arrested Ponce and two other Ecuadoreans they alleged had helped the hitmen organize the ambush. Police said they suspected the gunmen who killed Hurtado were Colombians who fled Ecuador.

One of the men arrested told police then that Hurtado's assassination was ordered by a Colombian paramilitary leader who thought Hurtado was helping that country's leftist guerrillas. Colombia's illegal paramilitary armies are fighting leftist guerrillas who sometimes cross the border into Ecuador. Members of Hurtado's Popular Democratic Movement denied the charge that he had helped Colombia's guerrillas. They blamed government supporters for the killing.

Ecuadorean police said they were notified Sunday of Ponce's arrest in the United States.

"I received the information this morning but I'm still trying to verify his situation with the Interpol office -- if he has a red card or if he is wanted here on an international petition," police Gen. Bolivar Cisneros told The Associated Press.

Cisneros said international arrest warrants have "different grades" depending on their importance -- red, green or yellow -- and the grade will affect how Ecuador proceeds.

Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement picked up Ponce from an upstate New York jail on Sunday morning, Stewart said. Officials from the federal immigration agency did not return calls Sunday seeking information.

Stewart said Ponce worked at a local restaurant, though it was not clear how long he lived in this rural area north of New York City. Ponce had likely been in this country for about six years, he said.

Lenin Rosero, a member of a commission formed to investigate the 1999 killings, said Ponce "was the person who facilitated the purchase of the arms used by the assassins and participated in the surveillance of the victim."

Rosero said the accused were detained for a year but released because under Ecuadorean law a suspect cannot be held for more than a year without being sentenced. But he said that doesn't mean the charges against him were dropped. On leaving prison, he was required to report back to authorities every three months, but he instead fled Ecuador, Rosero said.

Rosero said he would urge Ecuador's judicial system to ask for Ponce's extradition from the United States.

In 2005, a judge in Ecuador sentenced Colombian Freddy Contreras to 16 years in prison for the killing -- a ruling rejected as a coverup of a state crime by Hurtado's family.

Despite the 2005 ruling, the case remains open in Ecuador's judicial system.