Brazil's Bolsonaro rejects link to murder case, threatens TV network's license

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

WORLD NEWS OCTOBER 30, 2019 / 11:20 AM / UPDATED 30 MINUTES AGO

Brazil's Bolsonaro rejects link to murder case, threatens TV network's license

Anthony Boadle, Rodrigo Viga Gaier
5 MIN READ

BRASILIA/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday deplored a TV network’s report linking him with a former police officer accused of assassinating a Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman and threatened to cancel the broadcaster’s license.

TV Globo, Brazil’s largest TV network, reported on Tuesday that just hours before the March 2018 murder, the suspect was said to have told a doorman he was going to Bolsonaro’s house, gaining access to a gated community where he met instead with another former policeman accused of murdering the left-wing politician Marielle Franco.

The case led to widespread protests by Brazilians outraged to see a black, openly gay human rights advocate gunned down. Investigators arrested two former police officers Ronnie Lessa and Elcio de Queiroz nearly a year later and charged them with killing Franco in return for about $50,000. Their lawyers said they did not commit the crime.

Rio state prosecutors said later on Wednesday that the doorman had been mistaken. At a press conference, prosecutors said it was Lessa, who lived two doors down from Bolsonaro, who had answered the intercom and allowed Queiroz to enter.

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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-bolsonaro/brazils-bolsonaro-threatens-to-cancel-license-of-network-linking-his-name-to-murder-case-idUSKBN1X91VW

[Judi Lynn]

1. Jair Bolsonaro pictured with second accused in Marielle Franco murder case

Jair Bolsonaro pictured with second accused in Marielle Franco murder case
Photos of Brazil’s president with a suspect in the killing of a Rio councillor have emerged – seven months after a similar incident

Sam Cowie in São Paulo

@samcowie84
Thu 3 Oct 2019 15.05 EDT

Brazilian opposition figures and human rights observers are seething after a photo emerged of the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, grinning and giving the thumbs up alongside a man arrested in connection with the murder of the Rio de Janeiro city councillor Marielle Franco.

It was the second time the president has been photographed alongside a suspect in Brazil’s most high-profile political murder in a decade.

In March, a photo of Bolsonaro with Élcio Vieira de Queiroz, a former policeman accused of driving the car used in Franco’s killing, circulated on social media.

Queiroz’s arrest appeared to support suspicion that Franco had been targeted by the paramilitary gangs known as “militias” that control large swaths of Rio and are usually made up of or commanded by active or retired police officers.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/03/jair-bolsonaro-photo-marielle-franco-murder-accused

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From March:

Bolsonaro in spotlight after photo with Marielle Franco murder suspect surfaces

Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent

Wed 13 Mar 2019 13.53 EDT

An image of Brazil’s president with a suspect in the councillor’s death has raised questions over his family’s alleged mafia ties


Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, is facing growing calls to explain his family’s alleged links to the heavily armed and notoriously violent paramilitary gangs that control large swaths of Rio de Janeiro.

Questions over possible connections between the Bolsonaros and Rio’s so-called “militias” were swirling even before the former army captain took office in January – so much so that revellers at this year’s carnival penned a song satirising the president’s supposed criminal ties.

But those concerns intensified this week when a photograph emerged in which a grinning Jair Bolsonaro appears with his arm around Élcio Queiroz, one of the two men arrested on Tuesday for the 2018 assassination of the Rio councillor Marielle Franco.

Link to tweet

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/jair-bolsonaro-paramilitaries-marielle-franco-suspects

[Judi Lynn]

2. Suspected Murderer of Marielle Franco Asked to Go to Bolsonaro's House

Élcio Queiroz told condominium doorman that he was going to the house of the then deputy, according to testimony

Oliver Milman in New York
@olliemilman
Wed 30 Oct 2019 13.47 EDT

SÃO PAULO
The main suspect in the murder of Councilwoman Marielle Franco (PSOL) and driver Anderson Gomes, retired military police sergeant Ronnie Lessa, met with another suspect, former military police officer Élcio Queiroz, in the Vivendas da Barra condominium in Barra da Tijuca, in Rio de Janeiro. It is the same place where President Jair Bolsonaro has a home.

The meeting took place on March 14, 2018, the day of the crime. The information comes from the testimony obtained by the Jornal Nacional, TV Globo.

According to the testimony of a condominium doorman, Élcio said that he was going to the house of Jair Bolsonaro, who was then a federal deputy. The attendance records of the House of Representatives, however, show that Bolsonaro was in Brasilia that day.

According to the Jornal Nacional, the visitors' book says that, at 5:10 pm, Élcio said he was going to house number 58 but instead drove to house 66, where Lessa lives.

More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2019/10/suspected-murderer-of-marielle-franco-asked-to-go-to-bolsonaros-house.shtml

[Judi Lynn]

3. BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT JAIR BOLSONARO THREATENS COUNTRY'S LARGEST TV NETWORK AFTER NEWS REPORT LINKS HI

BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT JAIR BOLSONARO THREATENS COUNTRY'S LARGEST TV NETWORK AFTER NEWS REPORT LINKS HIM WITH 2018 MURDER
BY JEFFERY MARTIN ON 10/30/19 AT 8:22 PM EDT

In an angry rant on social media, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro denied his connection to the murder of councilwoman and human rights activist Marielle Franco in Rio de Janeiro last year and threatened to cancel the license of the television network that aired the allegations.

"We'll talk in 2022," Bolsonaro said about TV Globo, according to Al Jazeera. "You'd better hope I'm dead by then, because the renewal process won't be persecution, but ... there won't be any workarounds for you or anyone else."

"Despicable bastards, you are not patriots," Bolsonaro continued, according to Reporters Without Borders. "The journalism you do is rotten, corrupt and immoral. You're useless! You just publish lies!"

"But now you try to link me to Marielle's murder, TV Globo? You jerks of TV Globo," Bolsonaro said. "You scoundrels. This will not stick. I don't owe anyone anything. I don't have no reason whatsoever to kill someone in Rio de Janeiro. I met this councilwoman, found out about her existence on the day she was executed."

More:
https://www.newsweek.com/brazilian-president-jair-bolsonaro-threatens-countrys-largest-tv-network-after-news-report-links-1468827?piano_t=1