Suspected hitman in Rio councilwoman Marielle Franco’s assassination dies after shoot-out with police
- Suspect in 2018 murder Marielle Franco was former member Rio’s elite squad of officers
- Franco was an outspoken critic of violent police forces and extrajudicial killings
A suspect in the 2018 assassination of an outspoken Afro-Brazilian member of Rio de Janeiro’s city council was shot to death Sunday after he fired on police sent to arrest him, Brazilian authorities said.
Adriano Magalhaes da Nobrega, who had been on the run for more than a year, was located by police in a rural area of the city of Esplanada, 170km north of Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia.
“At the moment of his arrest, he fired on officials and was wounded in the shoot-out,” the state’s security agency said in a statement. “He was taken to a hospital but died as a result of his wounds.”
Magalhaes, a decorated former captain in an elite Rio military police battalion, was suspected of organising the March 14, 2018 murder of Marielle Franco, a groundbreaking feminist on the Rio city council known for her denunciations of police brutality and extrajudicial executions.
She and her driver were shot multiple times by occupants of another vehicle as they pursued her car in Rio de Janeiro.
The assassination shocked many Brazilians and sparked protests in several countries.