Justice Minister Flávio Dino announced on Monday that one of the main suspects in the Marielle Franco case agreed to a plea bargain.
Former police officer Élcio Queiroz confessed to participating in the March 2018 assassination of Ms. Franco, who served as a Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman, and her driver Anderson Gomes.
The confession closes the chapter of the investigation into the execution of the crime, and authorities will now focus on determining who ordered the double murder.
Ms. Franco, a member of the left-wing Socialism and Freedom Party (Psol), was shot dead on the night of March 14, 2018. She was 38. A year after the crime, Mr. Queiroz and Ronnie Lessa, also a former police officer, were arrested. Mr. Lessa was charged as the drive-by shooter, and Mr. Queiroz was charged as the getaway driver. Both remain in jail, awaiting trial.
On Monday, the Federal Police also arrested former firefighter Maxwell Simões Correa, who Mr. Queiroz said also participated in the double murder by conducting surveillance on Ms. Franco.
Mr. Correa had previously been arrested and convicted for obstructing the investigation, but was serving a non-custodial sentence.
The justice minister said in a press conference that Mr. Queiroz’s testimony, as well as other elements of the investigation, removed doubts about the commission of the crime and that the next steps would lead to who ordered the murders. “There is no perfect crime,” Mr. Dino said.
In February, Mr. Dino announced that the Federal Police had opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killings. In his inaugural speech earlier this year, he said solving the Marielle Franco case was a “matter of honor.”
The main investigation into the murder had been conducted at the state level, with Rio police assigning five different officers to lead the case. At the state prosecutor’s office, three different teams were assigned to the inquiry.
A few weeks before her murder, Ms. Franco had been chosen to be the rapporteur of a city council committee to oversee the federal security intervention in Rio ordered by then-President Michel Temer. Jair Bolsonaro was the only presidential candidate at the time who did not condemn Ms. Franco’s assassination.
In the first month of the Bolsonaro administration, then-Justice Minister Sergio Moro said he had considered federalizing the Marielle Franco case, but never acted on the idea. Ms. Franco’s family publicly opposed federalizing the case at the time and claimed Mr. Moro had “always shown little interest” in the investigation.
But after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office at the start of the year and appointed Ms. Franco’s sister, Anielle Franco, as racial equality minister, the family said federalizing the case was “an option” now that the Federal Police is under new leadership.
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