The brothers Andrés and Ramón Pérez Hoyos were arrested on Sunday, Colombia's Attorney General’s Office said in a news release.
The two apologized to the family of Marcelo Pecci who was shot in May last year at the beach of a holiday resort where he was honeymooning with his then pregnant wife.
Andrés said that he knows it was a big mistake and that he had no words to express his apologies to the Pecci family, especially to his wife in her state of pregnancy. “I am very sorry and want to apologize,” he said.
His brother Ramón also apologized after pleading guilty.
“I know that asking for forgiveness” is not going to make any difference, but that nevertheless, “I ask everyone in the courtroom, Mr. Pecci’s wife, and his family to forgive me,” he said.
The Pérez Hoyos brothers along with Margareth Lizeth Chacón Zúñiga, a fugitive believed to be in El Salvador, are accused of paying more than US$300,000 to Francisco Luis Correa Galeano, the confessed coordinator that hired a team to kill Pecci. In the process, Galeano had kept at least $20,000 for himself.
Colombian authorities discovered that the brothers and Chacón Zúñiga had met with Galeano in Cartagena before the murder. The investigators have photos of the meeting, as well as bank receipts for money withdrawals to pay for the trip to the crime scene and the attack.
Pérez allegedly told the coordinator that the “return” (revenge) had to be done because the Paraguayan prosecutor “had gone after his boss” and had managed to prosecute a brother of that boss.
Galeano is one of the seven already arrested in Colombia. He has not yet been sentenced for the involvement in the killing, the other four were sentenced to more than 20 years in prison each.
Two others were arrested late last year in Venezuela. One of them was the one who drove the jet ski from which the confessed murder jumped off to shoot Pecci in the face and in the back.
During last weekend’s raids, officials seized documents, clothing and a car that had been used during the planning of the murder.
Colombian authorities now expect the brothers to untangle the entire web that facilitated the murder of Marcelo Pecci.
