Chiquinho and Domingos Brazão accused of ordering assassination of Marielle Franco and her driver in 2018
Brazil’s supreme court has opened the trial of politicians accused of ordering the 2018 murder of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco, a case that exposed deep ties between politics and organised crime in the city.
Franco, an activist who grew up in a favela and became an outspoken critic of Rio’s powerful militia groups, was 38 when she was shot dead in the city centre alongside her driver, Anderson Gomes.
The two former military police officers who carried out the murders were given hefty jail terms in 2024.
The supreme court is now trying the former federal lawmaker Chiquinho Brazão and his brother Domingos, a former state lawmaker, who are accused of ordering the assassination.
