Ecuadorian prosecutor investigating U.S. attacks on vessels in Manta assassinated
Alexandra Bravo, prosecutor leading the investigation into attacks against Ecuadorian fishing boats, was shot dead in Manta on 14 June. Days before her death, she had been reassigned and removed from the case.
Hitman kills prosecutor investigating U.S. attacks on fishing boats
Alexandra Bravo, the prosecutor tasked with investigating attacks by United States forces against three Ecuadorian vessels, was shot dead in the coastal city of Manta on 14 June. According to dropsitenews.com, a hitman aboard a black motorcycle opened fire on Bravo and her sister as both exited a café at around 11 a.m. The sister, who attempted to shield Bravo, also died in the attack.
Agents who arrived at the scene found five 9 mm shell casings and Bravo's driver injured. There was no trace of the police escort assigned to her. The National Police, which operates under the executive power, has opened an investigation to determine whether there was an internal security failure.
The twenty-sixth victim of the judicial system since 2020
Bravo is the twenty-sixth member of Ecuador's judicial system to have been murdered since 2020, and the second person investigating state crimes to have fallen that same week. In addition to her routine cases of homicide and organised crime, she had been working on the Fiorella, Negra Francisca Duarte II and Don Maca files—a series of drone attacks against civilian fishing vessels that Drop Site revealed in April.
Two crew members from those vessels returned to their homes and reported having been kidnapped, blindfolded and deprived of food for eight days by armed U.S. men dressed in military uniforms, aboard a U.S. flagged patrol boat, before being abandoned in El Salvador. The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances backed calls for an investigation and demanded that the United States provide information about the whereabouts of the eight men still missing, with a deadline of 27 April. To date, Washington has not responded.
Institutional pressure to close investigative lines
A source within the Manta police department who knew Bravo personally revealed to Drop Site News that the prosecutor was under pressure from her superiors in the General Prosecutor's Office to treat the attacks exclusively as "missing persons cases". The source, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, indicated that Bravo had been ordered to close all investigative lines after 36 of the 44 missing men were found—despite their arrival with grave injuries, including 70 per cent vision loss and feet torn to the point of exposing bone, injuries that medical experts considered consistent with accounts of explosions and torture.
The lead researcher at Human Rights Watch who interviewed Bravo during her own investigation into the vessels noted similarly that the prosecutor faced "internal challenges within the institution itself to advance 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 same researcher.
Fernando Bastías, recognised human rights lawyer at the Ecuador Commission on Human Rights and member of the World Organisation Against Torture, based in Geneva, told Drop Site: "I cannot suggest that this was a political murder, but evidently, when a prosecutor is killed 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 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 trouble with anybody".
Reassigned days before the attack
In the days prior to her death, Bravo was reassigned to the General Prosecutor's Office in Montecristi, a neighbouring municipality, and formally removed from the three cases of attacks on vessels. Drop Site contacted several representatives of the General Prosecutor's Office to ask why she was reassigned, without obtaining a response. Bravo's replacement also reportedly received explicit instructions not to make statements.
In her final meeting with the Human Rights Watch researcher, on 8 May, Bravo indicated that "she was still in the initial stages of the inquiry". The Manta police source noted that, owing to the lack of cooperation from other state agencies, Bravo had sought advice on how to pursue new sources of evidence.
Context: Ecuador as the setting for Operation Southern Spear
Under the government of President Daniel Noboa, Ecuador has become a central location for Operation Southern Spear, Washington's campaign of extrajudicial bombings allegedly directed against "narco-terrorists" and which has caused the deaths of 221 people to date. There is no evidence that many of the victims, including those in Bravo's investigation, had been engaged in drug trafficking.
During the attack on La Negra Francisca, Darwin Pico-Flores, an eyewitness aboard a nearby vessel, told Drop Site that he called the Port Authority of Manta requesting emergency assistance. Nobody came. When Drop Site contacted the port in April to request comment, officials hung up the telephone upon learning that the call was from journalists.
Source: Google News BO — Crime