Rivaldo had been planning Marielle’s murder for more than a year when he was appointed by the military

Appointed by generals Braga Netto and Richard Nunes to be head of the civil police in the state in 2018, Rivaldo Barbosa already had a plan to execute Marielle Franco.

According to the Federal Police (PF) report, the crime had been planned since September of the previous year and had only not occurred before due to the requirement of Rivaldo himself, who determined that the crime could only be committed within specific circumstances. One of them is that the crime could not occur if the councilor was leaving the city council.

To substantiate the allegation, the PF attached to the report a statement from the confessed killer, Ronnie Lessa, who carried out the crime and who had contact with Rivaldo:

Lessa went on to reveal that Rivaldo considered canceling the operation given the impossibility of carrying out the operation under his terms, implying that several attempts were aborted for this reason.

When Rivaldo ascends to command of the Civil Police in the state, more than 7 months of attempts and operations aimed at the murder of Marielle Franco had already passed. Furthermore, the appointment of Rivaldo by the military contradicted intelligence guidelines from the civil police itself and also recommendations from state prosecutorswho were against the nomination due to the police officer’s problematic history with the animal game in Rio de Janeiro.

However, the PF’s own investigation also revealed that a year before the crime, the Crime Office had infiltrated Laerte Silva de Lima into the ranks of PSOL, Marielle’s party, in other words. When Rivaldo reached the top of PC-RJ, he had already been involved in orchestrating the crime for a year.