Politicians Involved in Murder of Brazilian Activist Marielle Franco: Security Minister

Brazil's Minister of Public Security, Raul Jungmann, said that there is a degree of “complexity” in solving the assassination of Black activist and Rio de Janeiro councilwoman, Marielle Franco, because the case “involves state agents.”

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Responding to questions from journalists on the case after attending a partnership signing between his department and the Agriculture and Livestock Confederation of Brasil, Jungmann called for patience.

“There is a need to establish, as we say, the intellectual authors (of the assassination) and obtain and compile evidence for this. So, that is the difficulty in this case. Politicians have already been cited, members of militias and public servants have already been cited as well. The difficult aspect in all this is the need to substantiate (the connections),” Jungmann stated.

“But the hour of justice will come, and I am certain that we will punish those responsible for Marielle's death.” Jungmann also affirmed that he is confident that the executors and intellectual authors of the crime will face justice.

Marielle's longtime partner and widow, Monica Benicio, also stated that patience was needed to solve the crime for “any old solution” won't suffice. Defining the event as a “political and power base” assassination, she has requested protection from the United Nations, saying that she fears for her own life after receiving online and personal threats.

Marielle and her driver, Anderson Gomes, were executed when a barrage of bullets hit her car while she was returning home from an event in central Rio de Janeiro called "Young Black Women Moving Structures" on March 15.

Three days before she was murdered, Marielle denounced the deaths of two youths during a military police operation in the Acari favela.

“We must speak loudly so that everybody knows what is happening in Acari right now. The 41st Military Police Battalion of Rio de Janeiro is terrorizing and violating Acari residents. This week two youths were killed and tossed in a ditch. Today, the police walked the streets threatening residents. This has always happened, and with the military intervention things have gotten worse,” she wrote on Twitter.

Also, two weeks earlier Franco was named a rapporteur in the special commission established by the city council to monitor the military intervention in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Investigators have revealed that the 9mm bullets that killed Marielle were part of a lot bought by federal police in 2006.

Former military policeman Alan Morais Nogueira and former fireman Luis Claudio Ferreira Barbosa were both detained last month on suspicion of being in the car that fired on the vehicle containing Marielle and Gomes. Their detention was also based on suspicion of being part of a militia group controlled by Orlando Oliveira de Araujo, also known as Orlando da Curicica, and killing a military police officer and a former military law enforcement officer at the behest of the illegal group.