Ecuadorian prosecutor investigating US attacks on vessels murdered in Manta
Alexandra Bravo, a prosecutor investigating attacks by the US against Ecuadorian fishing boats, was shot dead in Manta on 14 June. She was the twenty-sixth member of Ecuador's judicial system to be murdered since 2020.
Prosecutor murdered in Manta was investigating US attacks on Ecuadorian vessels
Alexandra Bravo, the prosecutor responsible for investigating a series of attacks attributed to US forces against three Ecuadorian fishing vessels, was shot dead on 14 June in the coastal city of Manta, according to dw.com. A hitman on a black motorcycle opened fire on Bravo and her sister as both were leaving a café at around 11 in the morning. The sister, who attempted to protect her by throwing herself over her, also died in the attack.
Upon arriving at the scene, officers found five 9 mm shell casings and Bravo's driver wounded. There was no trace of the police escort assigned to protect the prosecutor. The National Police, which operates under the executive power, opened an investigation to determine whether there had been an internal security failure.
Bravo thus becomes the twenty-sixth member of Ecuador's judicial system to be murdered since 2020, and the second person investigating alleged state crimes to be killed that same week.
The cases she was investigating
In addition to her regular assignments in homicide and organised crime, Bravo was handling cases designated Fiorella, Negra Francisca Duarte II and Don Maca, linked to drone attacks on civilian fishing vessels that news outlet Drop Site News disclosed in April. Two crew members who returned to Ecuador reported having been kidnapped, blindfolded and deprived of food for eight days by armed men wearing US military uniforms aboard a vessel flying a US flag, before being abandoned in El Salvador. Eight men remain missing.
The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances endorsed calls for an investigation and demanded that Washington provide information on the whereabouts of the missing before 27 April. The United States has not responded to date.
Internal pressure and lack of cooperation
A source within the Manta police department who knew Bravo personally and requested anonymity for fear of reprisals told Drop Site News that the prosecutor received pressure from her superiors in the General Prosecutor's Office to treat the attacks exclusively as "disappearance cases". According to the same source, she was ordered to close all lines of investigation after 36 of the 44 missing crew members were located, despite several returning with serious injuries: 70 per cent loss of vision and foot wounds exposing flesh and bone, injuries that doctors classified as consistent with accounts of explosions and torture.
The lead investigator for Human Rights Watch who interviewed Bravo as part of her own inquiry recalled that the prosecutor faced "internal challenges within the institution itself in advancing the investigation". Bravo repeatedly requested cooperation from other entities, including the Port Authority of Manta, but "none responded to her requests for information", according to the investigator.
Fernando Bastías, human rights lawyer for Ecuador's Human Rights Committee and member of the World Organisation Against Torture based in Geneva, told Drop Site: "I cannot suggest that it was a political murder, but evidently, when they kill a prosecutor it is because of the investigation they are conducting. That is something we have learned from our experience in Ecuador".
Bastías added that Bravo "was investigating a country [the United States] that has been presented in the media as an ally against crime. That investigation has not advanced at all, and that is due to the intention of avoiding getting into trouble or problems with anyone".
Reassignment days before the murder
In the days before her death, Bravo was transferred to the General Prosecutor's Office in Montecristi, a municipality neighbouring Manta, and reassigned to other cases, being formally removed from the investigation into the three attacks on the vessels. Drop Site News contacted several representatives of the General Prosecutor's Office to inquire about the reasons for that reassignment, without obtaining a response. Bravo's replacement received explicit instructions not to make any statements.
At her last meeting with the Human Rights Watch investigator on 8 May, Bravo indicated that "she was still in the initial stages of the inquiry and investigation".
Context: Ecuador as a testing ground
The country is going through a period of extreme violence against judicial operators. Under the government of President Daniel Noboa, Ecuador has joined Southern Spear Operation, Washington's campaign of extrajudicial bombings against alleged "narco-terrorists", which has caused 221 deaths according to reported figures. There is no evidence that many of the victims, including those involved in the cases Bravo was investigating, were engaged in drug trafficking.
Drop Site News, which revealed the existence of the attacks on the vessels in April, also documented that an eyewitness aboard a nearby vessel during the bombing of La Negra Francisca called the Port Authority of Manta to request emergency assistance. No one came. When the same outlet contacted the port for comment, officials hung up the phone when they learned it was journalists.
Source: Google News BO — Crime