Report says Marielle Franco’s murder was “meticulously planned” by Rio de Janeiro’s police chief – World

The murder of councilwoman Marielle Franco, shot dead on a street in Rio de Janeiro on March 14, 2018 along with her driver, Anderson Gomes, was “meticulously planned” by the then police chief of that Brazilian city, Rivaldo Barbosa, arrested by Federal Police (PF) this Sunday. This is what the 479-page report prepared by the PF says, which served as the basis for Federal Supreme Court (STF) judge Alexandre de Moraes to decree, in addition to Rivaldo’s, the arrests also carried out this Sunday of federal deputy Chiquinho Brazão and his brother of him, the advisor of the Court of Auditors Domingos Brazão, accused of being the masterminds.

“He was responsible for having control over the final control of the incident, by having total interference in the problems inherent in the course of the execution, especially with the imposition of conditions and demands”, reads an excerpt from the report, reproduced in the arrest warrants against Rivaldo, Chiquinho and Domingos, made public by Alexandre de Moraes after the arrests and cited several times this Sunday afternoon by the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Ricardo Lewandowski, during a press conference in Brasília.

What the PF says is that Rivaldo Barbosa, an inspector (delegate) of the Civil Police (Judicial) who had a reputation for being tough in the fight against crime but who, the corporation states in this report, had set up a large criminal organization within the police, He only agreed to participate in the plot that led to the death of the then young left-wing councilor if he had full control of each step of the execution and if everyone involved obeyed the plan drawn up by him. When he was contacted by the alleged masterminds, Chiquinho and Domingos, linked to a militia that dominates a vast area in the west zone of Rio de Janeiro and whose interests Marielle was fighting, Rivaldo Barbosa was the head of the Rio de Janeiro Homicide Division and, under circumstances that the Federal Police will now investigate, the day before the murders of the councilwoman and her driver was appointed chief of police for the entire state of Rio de Janeiro.

It was with this immense power, in control of the entire police structure of the state, that Rivaldo, accuses the Federal Police, managed to prevent the progress of investigations into the two brutal deaths, creating all kinds of obstacles and diverting the focus of those in charge, the who, according to the PF report reproduced in the arrest orders signed by Alexandre de Moraes, had guaranteed absolute impunity, which he achieved for six years. It was in this sense that Rivaldo and some of his deputies in command of the Rio de Janeiro police, removed from their positions this Sunday also by order of Alexandre de Moraes, led the investigation to falsely indicate at the time an opposing councilor as the principal and a paramilitary member who was then already arrested for another crime as executioner, a version that persisted for years but was discovered to be false.

“Such a requirement (to have control over all the actions that led to the murders of Marielle and Anderson) is based on the need to distance other bodies, especially federal ones, from pursuing the crime in question, in order to guarantee that all the vicissitudes of the investigation were maneuvered by Rivaldo”, adds the Federal Police in the report that resulted from a year of investigations parallel to those carried out by the Rio de Janeiro police and which, for now obvious reasons, resulted in nothing.