The arrest is part of Operation Murder, launched this Sunday by the Federal Police in conjunction with the Attorney General’s Office and the Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro.
You Brazão brothers They are politicians with a long history in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Historically, this family has a electoral and political stronghold in Jacarepaguáin the West Zone of Rio, region dominated by paramilitary groups.
Rivaldo is investigated for obstructing the investigation — he took over as head of the Civil Police the day before the attack. He was a trusted person in Marielle’s family.
Below, see the trajectory of the three suspects.
Domingos Brazão He is an advisor to the State Court of Auditors (TCE-RJ), which gives him the right to a special forum. Because of this, he can only be judged directly by the Federal Supreme Court (STF). It was for this reason that the investigation into the Marielle case, which began with the RJ civil police, was federalized in February 2023.
He always denied involvement in the crime and had preventive detention issued by the Superior Court of Justice (STJ).
➡️Career in politics and accusations – During the 1990s, Domingos worked at the Rio City Council as a parliamentary advisor. He was elected to public office for the first time in 1996 to occupy a seat in Rio’s City Council.
Two years later, Domingos was elected state deputy, a position he held for five consecutive terms in the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (Alerj).
In 2015, he was nominated and elected by a large majority to a seat at the State Court of Auditors (TCE) and, because of this, he left the MDB. That year, the choice was questioned because he had not presented civil, criminal and electoral certificates.
At the time, Brazão was a defendant in a case of abuse of economic power and buying votes through your family’s social centers in the West Zone of Rio. Furthermore, he got rid of a criminal complaint made by then state deputy Cidinha Campos, to the Rio Court of Justice, in a 2014 process in which both exchanged insults and profanity in the Alerj plenary.
During his term at Alerj, Brazão was removed due to allegations of vote buying, but was returned to the position after a favorable injunction from the then minister Ricardo Lewandowski, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF).
Among Brazão’s main electoral strongholds was Rio das Pedras, the birthplace of the Rio militia. His influence in the region led to him being mentioned in the final report of the Militia CPIin 2008. The Former deputy denied involvement with paramilitary groups and the crimes investigated.
Domingos Brazão was also accused and later acquitted of a murder, which he himself admitted to having committed. He spoke about this in the Alerj plenary, amid a fight with then state deputy Cidinha Campos, who accused him of having made threats.
“Yes, I killed someone. But that was more than 30 years old, when I was 22 years old,” he said at the time. “It was a criminal who had come to my house on my birthday. The court ruled in my favor.”
In 2017, Brazão was temporarily arrested along with four other TCE advisors in Operation Quinto do Ouro, an offshoot of Lava Jato in Rio. He is still facing suspicion of being part of an alleged criminal scheme made up of members of the Court of Auditors to receive bribes in on top of state contracts.
His arrest led to his removal from office. He only returned to being a counselor in May last year, after a favorable decision by the Rio Court.
Even with Brazão’s return to the TCE, the STF maintained the criminal action investigating the alleged bribery scheme.
➡️About the Marielle case – Brazão’s name has been mentioned in Marielle’s case since the first year of the investigations, in 2018.
O His first statement took place on June 18, when the case was still in the hands of the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police. He was summoned to testify at the Capital Homicide Police Station (DHC), which was investigating the case at the time. He He was already suspected of trying to disrupt the investigation through a false witness.
In his testimony, Brazão said that he became aware of who Marielle was on two occasions: “because she was the fifth most voted councilor and after her death”, he highlighted to the investigators.
In 2019, he was denounced by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) for obstruction of justice in the case.
In the same PGR report — based on an inquiry signed by delegate Leandro Almada da Costa, now superintendent of the Rio PF —, Brazão was named as a suspect of being the mastermind behind the crime. This accusation was based on intercepted conversations of the suspects involved in the false witness case.
The report said that Brazão is “effectively, based on other data and information we have, the main suspect of being the intellectual author of the crimes against Marielle and Anderson, which must be the subject of careful investigation by those entitled to it.”
The PGR, however, did not request the counselor’s indictment, as it was not directly investigating the case. At the time, the body carried out what became known as “investigation of the investigation”, that is, it reviewed the judicial process that was handled by the Civil Police to assess whether any deviation had occurred.
A The complaint, however, did not advance in the Homicide Police investigation..
The suspicion of hindering the investigations was presented to the STJ in 2019, but was rejected. The justification presented by the case’s rapporteur, Raul Araújo, was that it did not address the merits of the accusation, but claimed that the case should be processed in the common courts of Rio, as Brazão was removed from the TCE and no longer had the special jurisdiction.
Last year, the Rio Court of Justice also rejected the complaint, accepting a request from the State Public Ministry. At the time, the prosecution considered that the counselor did not act to hinder the investigations.
Federal deputy João Francisco Inácio Brazão (União Brasil) also has a special forum. Known as Chiquinho Brazão, he is 62 years old, and is the middle brother of two other politicians in RJ: state deputy Manoel Inácio Brazão, better known as Pedro Brazão, and Domingos Brazão.
➡️ Career in politics – Gas station businessman, Chiquinho Brazão was a councilor in the RJ City Council for the MDB for 12 years, including during Marielle’s first two years in office, between 2016 and March 2018, when she was murdered.
In 2018, Chiquinho was elected to the Chamber of Deputies by Avante and, in 2022, he was re-elected, but this time by União Brasil. That year, he had 25,817 votes.
In October 2023, the politician left the Chamber of Deputies and took charge of the Municipal Secretariat for Community Action, under the government of Eduardo Paes (PSD). The nomination was made by the Republicans, the party of former mayor Marcelo Crivella. In February of this year, he was dismissed from office by the mayor. At the time, according to the city hall, the dismissal occurred at the request of Chiquinho himself.
In May last year, Chiquinho received Alerj’s highest honor, the Tiradentes medal, from deputies Pedro Brazão, his brother, and Marcelo Ferreira Ribeiro, known as Marcelo Dino.
➡️About the Marielle case – Unlike his brother, Chiquinho had never been named in the Marielle case and, when asked, he claims that he had a good relationship and relationship with Marielle Franco in the two years in which they shared the plenary session of the Rio Chamber.
Delegate Rivaldo Barbosa was sworn in as head of the RJ Civil Police on March 13, 2018, one day before the attack. Graduated in law, Rivaldo was coordinator of the Homicide Division and was invited to the post by the then federal intervener, General Walter Braga Netto.
▶️About the Marielle case – Rivaldo is investigated for obstructing the investigation — he took over as head of the Civil Police the day before the attack.
O g1 found that, according to investigations, Rivaldo agreed with Domingos Brazão – before the crime – not to carry out the investigations and guarantee impunity.
One day after Marielle’s murder, Rivaldo said in an interview that the case was an attack against democracy and extremely serious. “We will adopt all possible and impossible ways to respond to this very serious case,” he said at the time.
Marielle’s family trusted Rivaldo. In an interview this morning, Marielle’s mother, Marinete, said his arrest was her biggest surprise. “My daughter trusted him and his work. And he said it was a matter of his honor to clarify [a morte da vereadora]. For obvious reasons, because Marielle, in addition to trusting him, Marielle guaranteed Doctor Rivaldo’s entry into Complexo da Maré after a massacre so that he could enter and leave with his physical integrity guaranteed.”
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