Marielle case: Supreme Court to keep suspects in custody
The First Panel of Brazil's Federal Supreme Court has a majority of four votes to uphold the imprisonment of the three individuals suspected of planning and ordering the killing of councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes. The murders took place in 2018 in Rio de Janeiro.
Justices Cármen Lúcia, Cristiano Zanin, and Flávio Dino aligned with the vote of Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the rapporteur of the case in the Supreme Court, who ordered the preventive detention of the three individuals on Sunday (Mar. 24). The vote of Luiz Fux is pending.
The justices are analyzing the arrest order virtually, voting without face-to-face deliberation. The 24-hour trial session began in the early hours of Monday (25) and is scheduled to end at 23:59.
Apart from the rapporteur, the only one to have submitted a written vote so far is Justice Dino. He stated that the preventive detentions were justified due to a "criminal ecosystem" that had been established within the government to shield the perpetrators of the crime.
The brothers Domingos and Chiquinho Brazão, along with former Rio Civil Police chief Rivaldo Barbosa, were arrested on Sunday morning (24) during Operation Murder Inc. They were subsequently taken by the Federal Police to Brasília, arriving around 4 p.m.
In the case of Chiquinho Brazão, who is a federal representative, the Federal Constitution stipulates that his arrest must be considered by the plenary of the House of Representatives. The plenary can either keep him in prison or release him. The date of the session has not yet been announced, but it is expected to take place in the next few days.
The main reason behind the murder of Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes, as revealed in the Federal Police investigation report, involves a dispute over the regularization of territories in Rio de Janeiro.
Franco and Gomes were shot dead at an intersection in central Rio de Janeiro in March 2018, while they were traveling by car after a work schedule.
