Michele Sensi-Contugi and Stephany Hollihan laid to rest in Daule

The funeral of Michele Sensi-Contugi and his wife, Ecuadorian designer Stephany Hollihan, ended shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday at Parque de la Paz cemetery in La Aurora, Daule, under strict family privacy and a broad official security cordon.

President Daniel Noboa attended the farewell alongside members of his cabinet, including Interior Minister John Reimberg, and Ecuador’s ambassador to Panama, Pascual del Cioppo. Diplomats, state officials and close associates also gathered after the couple’s remains arrived in Ecuador from Africa.

The government organized the ceremony as a state funeral, working with the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry under Ecuador’s public ceremonial regulations. Security forces deployed two military armored vehicles, troop transport buses, police cars, plainclothes intelligence agents and traffic officers around the cemetery. Traffic on León Febres-Cordero Avenue was temporarily restricted at points to facilitate the presidential motorcade.

A funeral chapel opened Wednesday afternoon, followed by a Mass at 11 a.m. Thursday before the burial. Sensi-Contugi led the National Intelligence Center, formerly known as CIES, from January 2024, and also served as government minister and presidential delegate on the boards of public companies including EP Petroecuador, Celec and Flopec. Noboa recalled intelligence operations that contributed to the capture of targets known as Fito and Topo, and to the location of Pipo in Spain.

The couple died on Aug. 19 when the helicopter carrying them and five other people crashed about 250 kilometers from Nairobi during a vacation. Because Ecuador has no diplomatic mission in Kenya, repatriation efforts went through a representative of the Ecuadorian Embassy in South Africa and relatives of the former official. Their coffins were then brought to Guayaquil for the funeral.