After judging two former police officers guilty of the 2018 murder of Marielle Franco, a Black councilwoman and LGBT activist on Rio de Janeiro’s city council, Brazilian justice has convicted two politicians for having masterminded the crime.
Eight years after her death, Brazilian justice has finally brought justice for Marielle Franco, whose murder had deeply shocked Brazil and beyond. On March 14, 2018, in the heart of the city, this Rio de Janeiro city councilor was gunned down in her car alongside her driver. Hailing from a favela and bisexual, the left-wing councilor, aged 38, ardently defended the rights of residents of the poor neighborhoods, notably Black youths, women and members of the LGBT+ community.
By the end of 2024, a popular jury had convicted two former members of Rio’s Military Police for carrying out the crime. It remained to try its alleged masterminds. Following a trial that highlighted the links between political leaders and the militias of the former capital of Brazil, the Supreme Court of the country convicted on February 25 two politicians to 76 years in prison for having ordered the assassination.
Militias and politicians in Rio
The Supreme Court ruled that former deputy Chiquinho Brazao, 62, and his brother Domingos, 60, a former elected official in the State of Rio de Janeiro, masterminded the execution of Marielle Franco in retaliation for her efforts to counter the militias who control entire areas of the Carioca megacity. On the city council, the councilwoman had indeed been working to prevent the expansion of clandestine settlements in the poor neighborhoods, one of the militias’ main sources of income.
The Brazao brothers “not only had contacts with the militia. They were the militia”, said magistrate Alexandre de Moraes. These criminal organizations, created about forty years ago by former police officers and initially presenting themselves as self-defense groups against drug trafficking, quickly became formidable gangs engaging in extortion and seizing public lands to illegally build housing or commercial buildings, while enjoying the backing of high-level political officials.
Racism and misogyny
According to the Supreme Court judges, who denounced the defendants’ ‘racism’ and the ‘misogyny’, Marielle Franco was murdered to ‘send a message’ to Rio’s political class. ‘A poor woman, a Black woman who dared to oppose the interests of militiamen, men and whites’, summarized Judge Moraes.
‘Political violence based on gender and race, which exists in this country, must end’, said at the verdict’s announcement the victim’s sister, Anielle Franco, the current Minister of Racial Equality in President Lula’s government. Jurema Werneck, director of Amnesty International in Brazil, hailed a verdict ‘historic, because Brazil now has the possibility to break the cycle of impunity (which) has been the norm.’
