Marielle Franco's killers sentenced to 78 and 59 years in jail

A Brazilian court on Thursday sentenced the two killers of iconic Black LGBTQ activist and councilwoman Marielle Franco to 78 and 59 years in jail, respectively, after a two-day trial over a crime that shocked the country.

Ronnie Lessa and Elcio Queiroz, two former military police officers, had confessed to killing the Rio de Janeiro politician and her driver Anderson Gomes in a drive-by shooting on March 14, 2018.

Lessa, who was sentenced to 78 years and nine months imprisonment, said he pulled the trigger. Queiroz, who drove the car, was sentenced to 59 years and eight months behind bars.

"Justice sometimes is slow to come... but it does come," Judge Lucia Glioche said as she issued the sentence.

Franco's assassination sent shockwaves through Brazil.

It cast a spotlight on the connections between police officers, powerful politicians and the militias that terrorize poor Rio communities, which Franco had denounced and who are suspected of ordering her assassination.

Congressman Chiquinho Brazao and his brother Domingos Brazao, an advisor with the state auditor, have been charged with masterminding the attack.

They were arrested in March, with an investigation into their alleged involvement ongoing.

Addressing the Rio court by video link from prison, Lessa, who confessed to killing Franco and Gomes in a burst of machine-gun fire, asked their families and all Brazilians for forgiveness. 

He said he was "blinded" and "driven crazy" by the prospect of a million-dollar reward for Franco's killing.

Prosecutors questioned his sincerity, saying the killers denied their involvement until being confronted with the evidence and then looked to get off by seeking a plea bargain.

It was Lessa who led police to the Brazao brothers, saying that the siblings organized the killing on behalf of militias, which they deny.

Franco, who grew up in a Rio favela, was an outspoken critic of police brutality. 

She was 38 at the time of her killing.

Her widow, mother, and sister Anielle Franco, who is Brazil's minister for racial equality, all attended the trial. 

On hearing the verdict both the Franco and Gomes families hugged and burst into tears.

Besides campaigning for the rights of young Black Brazilians, women and members of the LGBTQ community, Franco had frequently denounced abuses carried out by powerful militias in the favelas.

Rio militia suspected

Paramilitaries compete with drug trafficking gangs for control of Rio neighborhoods, seizing public land to illegally build real estate empires.

The court heard of her final minutes from her former PR manager Fernanda Chaves, who was in the car at the time of the attack.

Chaves told the court her first thoughts were that they had been caught "in the middle of a shootout between the police and drug dealers."

When the shooting stopped, she managed to stop the car and get out to call for help, covered in blood and broken glass.

Last week, the Brazao brothers were questioned by the Supreme Court, as was former Rio police chief Rivaldo Barbosa, who is accused of obstructing the investigation into Franco's death.

All three deny any wrongdoing.

"Whoever ordered (the murder), ordered it for financial reasons because they had an interest in silencing Marielle," Vieira, the prosecutor, said Thursday.

(AFP)