In Brazil, two murderers of Mariel Franco were sentenced to 78 years and 59 years in prison.

The two killers of Councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes were sentenced to 78 and 59 years in prison on Thursday at the end of a two-day trial for the crime that shocked Brazil nearly seven years ago.

The 38-year-old charismatic activist for the rights of black people and the LGBT community and his driver were shot dead while walking through a central neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro on March 14, 2018.

“Justice is sometimes slow, blind (…) but it comes,” Judge Lucia Glioche said after receiving the verdict of the popular jury, which on Wednesday heard testimony from several witnesses, including those from the confessed murderers.

After hearing the sentence, relatives of Franco and Gomes present in the Rio courtroom hugged each other and cried bitterly.

«We will continue the fight (…) to defeat the political violence that murdered Marielle and Anderson. Because she was a black woman from the favela, her killers thought her body was disposable,” said Monica Benicio, her partner.

Prosecutors had requested a maximum prison sentence of 84 years for Ronnie Lessa and Elcio Queiroz, former members of the Rio military police.

Lesa, who admitted that he shot Marielle Franco with a machine gun from a vehicle driven by Queiroz, was sentenced to 78 years and 9 months. His partner, 59 years and 8 months old.

During her statement from prison by videoconference on Wednesday, Lessa said she was “blinded” and “went crazy” by the million-dollar offer she received to carry out the murder, allegedly in connection with organized crime in Rio. The commission was given for the councilwoman’s fight against.

“They decided to commit murder for financial gain,” said prosecutor Fabio Vieira, who called both defendants “socialists” without remorse.

According to prosecutors, Lessa and Quiroz denied the facts until the strength of the evidence led them to accept a cooperation agreement with Justice.

Under the pact, the terms of which are still shrouded in secrecy – as judicial sources told AFP – the effective sentence will be reduced.

According to the G1 portal, Lessa will receive 13 years in prison and Queiroz will receive 7 years in prison, being added to those already sentenced to prison since 2019.

– “I hoped she was alive” –

Members of Marielle Franco’s family, including her sister, current Minister of Racial Equality, Anielle, were present in the courtroom during the hearing. Also widow of Anderson Gomes.

As well as the jury, Wednesday heard shocking testimony from people close to him, such as Franco’s press adviser Fernanda Chavez, who was the third passenger in the car on the fatal day.

She said via videoconferencing that both of them were in the back seat of the car when she heard “the sound of gunshots” and leaned over, thinking it was a “shootout between the police and drug traffickers”.

“I was behind Anderson and Mariel was to my right, on the side where the shots were coming from,” Chaves said.

When the gunfire stopped and she managed to activate the handbrake of the vehicle that was still running, she got out with her body “stained with blood and broken glass” to ask for help.

“I was still holding out hope that (Mariel) was alive.”

– “Voice of Myles Marielle” –

Marielle Franco, born in a favela in Rio, was a famous fighter against police violence and also faced militia crackdowns.

These vigilante groups compete with drug trafficking gangs for control of neighborhoods and appropriate public lands to illegally build real estate.

After the murder, these criminal organizations found themselves the targets of investigators.

The trial being held in Rio does not concern the alleged masterminds of the murder, federal deputy Chiquinho Brazão and his brother Domingos Brazão, an adviser to the Rio Court of Accounts.

The Brazao brothers, arrested in March after Lassa pleaded guilty, testified before the Supreme Court last week, along with the city’s former civilian police chief Rivaldo Barbosa, accused of obstructing the investigation.

“Whoever ordered (the murder), ordered it for a financial matter because he had an interest in silencing Marielle’s voice,” prosecutor Vieira said Thursday.

After the verdict, Franco’s father, Antonio Silva, said that although the conviction for the “cowardly” murder brings him some peace, “it does not end here” because “there are people who ordered the crimes”.

Both the Brazeau brothers and the police deny any involvement.

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