‘It was Rivaldo Barbosa that I called when I found out about Marielle’s murder’, says Freixo | Rio de Janeiro

Rivaldo Barbosa, former head of the Civil Police of RJ, was arrested this Sunday (24)reproduction

Published 03/24/2024 09:52 | Updated 03/24/2024 11:25

Current president of Embratur, Marcelo Freixo spoke about the arrest of the former head of the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro Rivaldo Barbosa this Sunday (24) in a joint operation by the Federal Police and the Rio Public Ministry (MPRJ). In a post on the social network charges to clarify the case.

“It was Rivaldo Barbosa that I called when I found out about Marielle and Anderson’s murder and was heading to the scene of the crime. He was head of the Civil Police and received the families the next day with me. Now Rivaldo is in prison for having acted to protect the masterminds of the crime, preventing investigations from progressing. This says a lot about Rio de Janeiro.”

In an interview with Globonews this Sunday, Freixo said that the person responsible for the crime was “clearly being protected”, but to imagine that Barbosa was “an accomplice in premeditation”, that is, he knew from the beginning about the attack on the then councilor, was “a thing very serious” and “very, very serious business”.

“It’s humanly depressing. This goes beyond the limit of what is expected from the police. This goes beyond the limit of what is expected from any institution. This goes beyond the limit of what is expected from a human being, from a person”, says the former deputy.

“I called Rivaldo and said, Rivaldo, they killed Marielle. I didn’t need to explain to him who Marielle was, he knew who Marielle was. I called him and said: Rivaldo, they killed Marielle. I’m going to There, that’s what’s making me absolutely outraged, so perplexed, that he reacted with surprise and said, what do you mean, they killed Marielle? I mean, he knew! It’s unbelievable, it’s a very serious thing, it’s very serious” , complete.

Rivaldo took over as Chief of Police the day before the murder of the councilor and was arrested on suspicion of receiving bribes to try to obstruct investigations into the crime.

The brothers were also arrested Domingos Brazãocurrent advisor to the Court of Auditors of the State of Rio, and Chiquinho Brazão, federal deputy from Rio de Janeiro. Operation Murder Inc. targets the intellectual authors of homicide crimes, according to the investigation. The police are still investigating the crimes of criminal organization and obstruction of justice.

“In 2008, when I created the Militia CPI, we wrote in the report that crime, police and politics are not separate in Rio. 16 years later, with Marielle’s case resolved, I reaffirm the same sentence. A member of the Court of Auditors, a councilor (now deputy) and a police chief arrested for Marielle’s murder”, said Freixo.

Still on social media, Freixo recalled that there were five delegates in the case and all of them were removed during the investigations. For the former deputy, the arrest of Rivaldo Barbosawhom he accuses of protecting criminal groups within the police, represents not only the reason for the delay in progressing investigations into the case but also an opportunity for the state to turn “this page where crime, police and politics are not separate”.

Remember the case

Imprisoned since 2019, former military police officer Ronnie Lessa, who fired the shots that killed councilwoman Marielle Franco and driver Anderson Gomes, on March 14, 2018, mentioned the name of federal deputy Chiquinho Brazão (União) and his brother, Domingos Brazão, in his plea bargain, approved this Tuesday (19) by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

One of the main lines of investigation into the case is related to a dispute over land in the West Zone. In testimony, Lessa reported that Marielle became a target after defending the occupation of land by low-income people and that the process was monitored by bodies such as the Institute of Land and Cartography of the State of Rio and the Land and Housing Center, of the Public Defender’s Office of Rio.

According to investigations, the person responsible for the crime that ended the lives of Marielle and Anderson was seeking the regularization of a condominium in Jacarepaguá without considering the criteria of an area of ​​social interest. The objective would be to transform the property into real estate speculation.

Six years after the death of councilor Marielle Franco and driver Anderson Gomes, investigations into the case are ongoing to discover the mastermind and motivation for the murders. At the beginning of the month, the Public Ministry of the State of Rio de Janeiro (MPRJ), through the Task Force of the Specialized Action Group to Combat Organized Crime for the Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes case (Gaeco/FTMA), asked the Justice that former firefighter Maxwell Simões Corrêa, known as Suel, be tried by a popular jury.

Investigators point out that Suel participated in the murder plan and monitored the councilwoman’s routine, in addition to helping former military police officers Ronnie Lessa and Élcio Queiroz, shooter and driver respectively, in dismantling the car used in the ambush and the disappearance of the capsules from ammunition. Lessa and Queiroz will also go to the popular jury.