Five years on, the same questions remain: Who had Marielle Franco killed? And why?

Following the opening of an investigation by the Federal Police, the case of the murder of the city councilwoman and her driver Anderson Gomes, which took place on March 14, 2018, is more alive than ever

A woman wears a t-shirt bearing the portrait of slain Brazilian councilwoman Marielle Franco, during a mass celebration on the first anniversary of her death in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on March 14, 2019. - Franco was a black gay rights activist who was an outspoken critic of police brutality and defender of the poor. A year after her murder shocked Brazil, two police officers were arrested in the case, but the motivation of the crime remains unknown. (Photo by CARL DE SOUZA / AFP)

The inauguration of Anielle Franco as Minister of Racial Equality, in January 2023, could symbolize a fair closing chapter in the story of the murder of her sister, Marielle Franco. However, after five years, the case of the city councilwoman shot dead in an ambush in downtown Rio de Janeiro, along with her driver Anderson Gomes, is still not over. Between comings and goings, changes in police chiefs and suspicions of corruption, two questions remain: Who had Marielle Franco killed? And why? 

At the time of the crime, which took place five years ago, UN representatives said that “the murder was intended to intimidate those who fight for human rights in Brazil”. Franco’s execution is one of the 174 deaths of human rights defenders that took place between 2015 and 2019 in the country, according to a study conducted by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

In February, the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flávio Dino, ordered the opening of an inquiry by the Federal Police for the purpose of stepping up the investigations that are already being carried out by the Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Civil Police. 

According to the president of the Brazilian Public Security Forum, Renato Sérgio de Lima, this decision could change the course of the case. “The inquiry innovates the approach. This is because the minister did not revoke the jurisdiction of the state government to investigate the murders; instead, it opened a parallel line of investigation, which, by all accounts, will allow the sharing of evidence and technical elements between the Federal Police and the Civil Police,” wrote Lima, in an article in the magazine piauí. 

Over the past five years, the control over the investigations has changed several times. While the Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office has already had three different groups of prosecutors in charge of the case, in the Civil Police, five police chiefs have headed up the investigations.

“The entry of the Federal Police could bring highly qualified officers to the case. But more importantly: it will have the role of conferring impartiality and credibility to the conclusions that are eventually reached,” said Lima. 

The structures of inequality

Marielle Franco was born in the Maré favela complex, in Rio de Janeiro, in 1979. She earned a Masters in Sociology and gained prominence as a human rights defender, as an activist for the rights of black people, LGBTQIA+ and residents of favelas and urban outskirts.

In her master’s thesis entitled “UPP – the reduction of the favela to three letters: an analysis of public security policy in the state of Rio de Janeiro”, presented in 2014, she noted how the public security model in Rio de Janeiro reinforces the repression of the most vulnerable in society. 

“The Penal State, through the discourse of social insecurity, applies a policy aimed at the repression and control of the poor. The most emblematic feature of this situation is the militarist crackdown in the favelas and the rising incarceration, in its broadest sense. The UPPs [Police Pacification Units] have become a policy that strengthens the Penal State with the goal of containing those who are dissatisfied or ‘excluded’ from the process, formed by a significant number of poor people who are increasingly consigned to the ghettos of cities and prisons,” she wrote. 

Franco worked as a congressional advisor to the state representative Marcelo Freixo for ten years. Then, in the 2016 elections, she was elected as the fifth most-voted city councilor in Rio de Janeiro, with 46,000 votes. 

According to Raissa Belintani, coordinator of the Strengthening Democratic Space program at Conectas, the Marielle Franco case exposes to the world how human rights defenders are treated in Brazil. “The murder of Marielle Franco reveals how people systematically placed on the margins of society, such as black and LGBTQIA+ people, when they dare to challenge the structure that oppresses them and occupy positions of power, are victims of countless forms of violence, including summary executions”. 

In an article in the Sur journal, the regional prosecutor of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, Marlon Weichert, reinforces this idea by stating that, in Brazil, “there is one social group – young, black, poor people – who suffer the three forms of violence: they are the preferred victims for homicides in general, homicides committed by public forces and also of mass incarceration”.

Black lives matter

The investigations conducted so far reveal the intricate knots that exist between illegal gambling known as ‘jogo do bicho’, militias, police and politicians in the west side of Rio de Janeiro, as stated by Lima of the Brazilian Public Security Forum in his article in the magazine piauí. They also expose the predominance of the militia group “Escritório do Crime”, led by the former captain of the elite military police unit BOPE, Adriano da Nóbrega – who, killed in an exchange of fire with the police in 2020, was called a hero by Jair Bolsonaro and, fifteen years earlier, decorated by Flávio Bolsonaro.

Since the crime committed against the city councilwoman and her driver, two people have been arrested: the former police officer Ronnie Lessa, accused of firing the shots; and Élcio Queiroz, allegedly the driver of the car. But it is still a mystery who ordered her killed and the real motivation. 

In 2019, the Prosecutor General at the time, Raquel Dodge, in her final act before leaving office, asked the Superior Court of Justice to federalize the investigation of the crime. It was suspected that the Rio de Janeiro state Civil Police was procrastinating in taking the necessary measures; however, the move by the Prosecutor General was harshly criticized by the family, who was not consulted about the decision. “Right now, a possible shift in jurisdiction will cause more delays and more sacrifice for those awaiting justice for Marielle and Anderson,” said Mônica Benício, the city councilwoman’s widow, in an interview at the time with O Globo. The Superior Court of Justice denied the federalization request. 

The entry of the Federal Police into the case, in 2023, is a sign that Marielle Franco has not been forgotten in these five years, nor will she ever be. Because, as Anielle Franco recalled, in her inauguration speech at the Ministry: “We are here because we have a new project for the country, where a black woman can access and participate in different decision-making positions without having her life cut short with five shots to the head.”