According to sources close to the victim, quoted by the Jornal Económico, Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha is suspected of committing suicide. The banker was found dead this Wednesday night in the garage of his home in Restelo, a Lisbon neighbourhood. In a statement, the Lisbon Metropolitan Command revealed this Thursday that the PSP was alerted to an occurrence at 9:30pm on Wednesday.
In the press release, the PSP states that Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha allegedly "committed suicide in the garage, by the method of hanging, confirming the death after resuscitation maneuvers by the means of rescue.
The hypothesis of suicide had already been raised by the authorities, after the manager was found with injuries - "blows to the wrists and a perforation in the abdomen" - on January 7th, at his holiday home in Vila Nova de Milfontes, Alentejo, by his maid. At the time, he allegedly told the portuguese Judiciary Police (PJ) that it was a suicide attempt, given the fact that he was experiencing psychological depression.
The GNR was called to the scene, having hypothesized that Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha had tried to commit suicide "with a white gun". However, the suicide thesis raised some suspicions and PJ was also called to the scene to analyse the case. After the analysis, the authorities hypothesized that it was a homicide and began to investigate the case.
At the moment, the Observador says, three lines of investigation are being conducted: attempted suicide, simulation of attempted suicide and attempted murder. The manager's mobile phone was seized in order to "try to understand if he was being coerced to present that version" - of suicide -, said PJ.
The death of Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha comes one day after he was indicted in the 'Luanda Leaks' case - a consortium of investigative journalism that revealed on Sunday over 715,000 files detailing the financial schemes of Isabel dos Santos and her husband, Sindika Dokolo, who will be at the origin of the family fortune. It was the banker who validated the transfers - worth 57 million dollars - from Sonangol's Eurobic account to Dubai the day after Isabel dos Santos' resignation.
