the two assassins of Marielle Franco, elected official and black and LGBT activist, sentenced

The assassins in 2018 of Marielle Franco, a Brazilian elected official and black and LGBT activist, were sentenced on Thursday October 31 in Rio de Janeiro to respectively seventy-eight and fifty-nine years in prison. On March 14, 2018, the charismatic Rio municipal councilor, who after her death became an icon of the left and the black cause in her country, was riddled with bullets in her car in the city center. She was 38 years old. His driver, Anderson Gomes, was also killed instantly.

“Justice is sometimes slow, blind […] but she’s coming”launched Judge Lucia Glioche while reading the sentences decided for this double homicide by a popular jury, at the end of two days of hearing. At this announcement, parents and relatives of the victims present in court embraced each other and burst into tears, including Marielle Franco's sister, Anielle Franco, minister of racial equality in the government of left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “We will continue the fight […] to put an end to what murdered Marielle and Anderson, which is this political violence”reacted to the press Monica Benicio, who was the companion of the local elected official. “Because she was a black woman, from a favela, her killers thought her body was disposable”she said.

Ronnie Lessa had confessed to shooting at Marielle Franco's car with a machine gun from a vehicle driven by Elcio Queiroz, who also confessed. The first was sentenced to seventy-eight years and nine months and his accomplice to fifty-nine years and eight months. Both tried for homicides and participating by videoconference from their prison, these former members of the Rio military police had entered into a guilty plea agreement during the investigation.

Their effective sentence will be reduced, due to this collaboration with the justice system, the clauses of which are confidential, judicial sources explained to Agence France-Presse. According to the G1 information site, Ronnie Lessa will have to serve thirteen years and his sidekick seven years, which will be added to the years in prison served since 2019. The prosecution had requested the maximum sentence for each, i.e. eighty-four years of imprisonment. seclusion.

A case with international impact

The crime had a great impact, in Brazil and beyond, and had shed a harsh light on the power of organized crime and militias in Rio. These para-police groups sow terror and grab land to illegally build a real estate fortune. Marielle Franco stood against militia action and campaigned against police violence.

Ronnie Lessa assured Wednesday that she had been ” blind “ et “made mad” by the sum of several million dollars offered to commit the crime. “I want to take this opportunity and, with absolute sincerity and regret, ask for forgiveness from the families of Anderson and Marielle and […] to all of society for the disastrous acts that brought us here”he declared. Prosecutors questioned the sincerity of his repentance. “They decided to kill for profit”said prosecutor Fabio Vieira on Thursday, who accused the assassins of « sociopathes » sans regret

According to the public prosecutor, the shooter and the driver had denied the facts to investigators before being confused by the evidence of their involvement and then sought an exit by collaborating with the justice system.

A deputy and his civil servant brother incriminated

“It’s not yet the end because there are still sponsors”however, underlined Antonio Silva, father of Marielle Franco. Arrested last March after being incriminated by Ronnie Lessa, the deputy Chiquinho Brazao and his brother Domingos Brazao, advisor to the Court of Auditors of Rio, were heard last week by the Supreme Court, just like the former head of the city ​​civil police, Rivaldo Barbosa.

The two brothers, linked to the militias according to the killer, denied any involvement, as did the police officer, accused of obstructing the investigation. The instruction continues. “Who gave the order [de l’assassinat] gave it for a financial reason because it was in his interest to silence Marielle's voice”prosecutor Vieira said on Thursday.