Politics, police and mafia, the murky alliance behind the murder of Marielle Franco which shocked Brazil

The recent arrest of the alleged intellectual authors of the murder of the Afro-Brazilian councilor Marielle Francoa crime that shocked the world six years ago, exposed more than ever very shady connections: those of politics and organized crime in Rio de Janeiro.

The Federal Police’s investigative report, a thick 500-page file, is full of revelations that seem to be taken from a mafia novel.

It describes in detail the functioning of the militias that sow terror in the popular neighborhoods of the postal city of Brazil, with the complicity of police officers and high-ranking politicians.

It was against these gangs that Marielle Franco raised her voice before being riddled with bullets in her car on March 14, 2018. The Rio councilor, originally from the favelas, died at the age of 38 together with her driver, Anderson Gomes .

“This is a fundamental investigation to understand the depth of the abyss Rio finds itself in,” wrote former left-wing MP Marcelo Freixo on the social network X.

Marielle Franco considered Freixo her mentor, to whom she served as a parliamentary assistant when he confronted these criminal organizations head-on.

“Federal Police investigations show that the militias maintain a strong influence at the highest levels of Rio’s police,” Carolina Grillo, coordinator of the Study Group on New Illegalities (Geni) at the Federal University, told AFP Fluminense.

that the public authorities have an active role to encourage the activity of the militias”, he added.

Suspicions and political connections

Arrested on Sunday, the brothers Domingos and Chiquinho Brazão are old acquaintances in Rio politics. Investigators link them directly to the militias.

The first was a local deputy and then councilor of the Court of Auditors of Rio; the second, city councilor, and is currently a federal deputy.

The third suspect arrested, Rivaldo Barbosa, is none other than the former head of Rio’s civil police. Initially the investigation was entrusted to this authority, but last year it passed into the hands of the Federal Police.

According to investigators, the Brazão brothers made use of Barbosa’s services “to ensure impunity in advance”.

Appointed to the position on the eve of the murder, Barbosa allegedly ensured that “the investigation was dead” by hiding its traces.

His arrest was a ‘shock’ for Marielle Franco’s relatives, who felt “betrayed” by the person who comforted them shortly after the crime.

“He told me that for him it was a matter of honor to solve the case,” Marinete da Silva, the former councilor’s mother, told the GloboNews channel.

The three prisoners declare themselves innocent.

The investigation remained stalled for five yearsuntil the beginning of the mandate of the social democratic president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who made clarification on the issue an electoral promise.

The terror of the militias in Rio

For about forty years the militias that spread terror in Rio, created by former police officers, began to establish themselves in the popular neighborhoods of the western area of ​​the city, where They presented themselves as community self-defense groups to keep drug gangs at bay.

In addition to the “protection tax” on traders, they have extended their extortion to all types of services, such as gas and internet.

But above all they have taken over public land to illegally build houses and commercial buildings, so much so that the property is “their main source of income”, explains Carolina Grillo.

According to the Federal Police, They ordered the crime because Marielle Franco “threatened their interests.”

The report also cites “numerous indications” of the Brazão brothers’ involvement “in criminal militia activities related to illegal land appropriation.”

The investigation “demonstrated the central importance of the land issue” in the control that the militias exercise over the neighborhoods in which they settle, also “at a political level”, underlines David Marques, of the Brazilian NGO Public Security Forum.

The areas dominated by these criminal groups have thus become electoral strongholds for politicians, as would be the case in Brazão.

In 2008, when Marcelo Freixo created a parliamentary commission of inquiry in Rio’s Legislative Assembly, with the active participation of his then assistant Marielle Franco, the militias received a serious blow.

Dozens of people were arrested, including local elected representatives.

But These criminal groups “rapidly reformed and resumed their growth”, says Carolina Grillo.

For the Minister of Human Rights, Silvio Almeida, the revelations of the investigation represent an opportunity to “rethink” security policies by “recovering control of the territories”.

“This is why public policies are necessary, because it is by taking advantage of this void that the militias gain a foothold and sow terror,” he said in a tribute to Marielle Franco in the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday.

Source: AFP