Whistleblower investigating Ecuadorian president’s family business was murdered, activists say

Campaigners in Ecuador say a Polish anti-corruption activist who investigated allegations against the family business of the country’s rightwing president was murdered to silence her. Monika Silva Koniuszek, 41, was found dead in her home in Montañita, a coastal town in Ecuador’s Santa Elena province. The single mother of daughters aged four and nine, was found on the floor with a noose around her neck on 8 June. A day after her death, and before autopsy results had been released, Ecuador’s interior minister John Reimberg said that the initial hypothesis was that it was a suicide: “The necessary evidence to reach that conclusion was found at the scene,” he told local media . However, on Friday, a postmortem in Guayaquil found that the cause of death was a blow to the head and strangulation. The Polish activist had been speaking out against land grabbing and environmental damage. Photograph: Gerardo Menoscal/AFP/Getty Images “Based on the forensic reports, we are certain that this was a violent death; therefore, the alleged suggestion that it was a suicide falls apart,” said attorney Lita Martínez, director of the Ecuadorian Centre for the Promotion and Action of Women. Silva Koniuszek had spent the last decade denouncing environmental crimes and corruption on social media, and working with local journalists. …