Two former politicians were convicted by Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday of ordering the 2018 assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman and activist Marielle Franco, whose murder exposed a web….
Two former politicians were convicted by Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday of ordering the 2018 assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman and activist Marielle Franco, whose murder exposed a web of corruption linking political figures to organised crime.
Brazil's Supreme Court on Wednesday convicted two former lawmakers of ordering the 2018 assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco, a popular black activist whose murder exposed deep ties between politics and organised crime.
Franco, a lesbian activist who grew up in a favela and became an outspoken critic of Rio's powerful militia groups, was 38 when she was gunned down in the city centre alongside her driver, Anderson Gomes.
The case sent shockwaves through Brazil and drew international condemnation.
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The four-justice Supreme Court bench voted unanimously to convict former federal lawmaker Chiquinho Brazao, 62, and his brother Domingos, 60, a former state lawmaker, of ordering the hit on Franco.
They were each sentenced to 76 years and three months in jail for double aggravated homicide, armed criminal organisation and the attempted murder of one of Franco's advisors who survived the attack.
The court found that Franco had been targeted as she was a threat to the interests of the Brazao brothers.
Watch moreBrazilian court orders preemptive arrest of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
From her position on the city council, Franco worked to prevent the expansion of clandestine housing developments in poor neighborhoods, one of the militias' biggest sources of income.
The Brazao brothers "didn't just have contact with the militia.
The importance of the report depends on confirmed records, named authorities and any follow-up statements that clarify the scale, timing and public impact of the development.
The next useful information will be the most direct record available: an official notice, a named statement, an updated dataset, a court filing, a regulator note or a corrected public advisory.
The source page records the update at 25 Feb 2026, 11:27 PM, and the story should be followed for any later corrections or clarifications.
