RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 25 (Reuters) – A panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court voted on Wednesday to convict a former lawmaker and his brother to 76 years in prison for their involvement in the 2018 assassination of councilwoman and human rights activist Marielle Franco in Rio de Janeiro, along with her driver Anderson Gomes.
All four justices on the panel found that former Congressman Chiquinho Brazao and his brother, Domingos Brazao, a councilor on the Rio de Janeiro state audit court, ordered Franco’s murder to stop her and her political party from creating obstacles to their illegal land-grabbing scheme.
A rising star in Brazil’s Socialism and Liberty Party, Franco was a 38-year-old Black and gay progressive council member born in a poor Rio neighborhood. The targeting of an elected official of Franco’s stature shocked Rio de Janeiro, despite its long history of urban violence, and sparked widespread outrage in Brazil and internationally.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the trial, said the accused were emboldened to commit the crime because they believed murdering a Black woman would not cause any major reaction.
“Inside the misogynistic, prejudiced minds of those who ordered and carried out the crime, who would care about that?,” Moraes said. “They did not expect such wide repercussions.”
The ruling brings to a close an eight-year-long process to bring the men behind the high-profile killing of Franco to justice, in a country where murders often go unpunished.
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Franco and her driver were gunned down in her car after leaving an event on the night of March 14, 2018. The men accused of pulling the trigger, Ronnie Lessa and Elcio de Queiroz, former police officers, pleaded guilty and are serving decades-long sentences.
The Brazao brothers, who were among the most powerful politicians in Rio de Janeiro, earned millions of dollars through a scheme that grabbed public lands in the city’s west zone for private real estate projects.
They were arrested in 2024 after Lessa named them as the masterminds behind the murders as part of a plea deal with prosecutors to help investigators.
Three others were also convicted by the Supreme Court justices, including Rivaldo Barbosa, at the time Rio’s police chief, who was sentenced to 18 years for hindering investigations. All five denied involvement in the killing during the trial.
Brazil’s Minister of Racial Equality and Marielle’s sister, Anielle Franco, celebrated the trial as a “historical milestone” in the fight against political violence based on gender and race.
“Today, Brazil’s justice system honored the memory of Marielle and Anderson,” she wrote on X. “Impunity cannot be part of our democracy.”
(Reporting by Fabio TeixeiraEditing by Bill Berkrot and Aurora Ellis)
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