After six years, Marielle Franco’s killers are finally convicted

Brasil de Fato

After a two-day trial, the 4th Jury Court of Rio de Janeiro sentenced former military police officers Ronnie Lessa and Élcio Queiroz to prison for the double homicide with triple aggravation of councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes, as well as the attempted murder of Fernanda Chaves, the sole survivor of the attack.  

Ronnie Lessa was sentenced to 78 years and 9 months in prison with a 30-day fine, while Élcio received a sentence of 59 years and 8 months of imprisonment along with a 10-day fine. The convicts will also have to pay alimony to Arthur, Gomes’s son, until he turns 24 years old. Additionally, they must pay compensation for moral damages amounting to BRL 706,000 (around US$ 122,000) to each family member: Arthur, Agatha (Gomes’s wife), Luiara, Mônica, and Marinette (Franco’s daughter, widow, and mother, respectively). Furthermore, they are responsible for covering the costs of the case. 

“The sentence is directed to the defendants present here. Moreover, it is also directed to the various ‘Ronnies’ and ‘Elcios’ that exist in Rio de Janeiro,” stated Judge Lúcia Glioche. “Justice is sometimes slow, it’s blind, it’s dumb, it’s unfair, it’s wrong, it’s crooked, but it comes. Justice arrives even for those who think they will never be hit by it, like the accused. Despite all the difficulties of being interpreted and experienced by the victims, justice reaches the guilty and takes away the most important asset after life: freedom.” 

After the sentencing, Anielle Franco, Franco’s sister, a councilwoman and Minister of Racial Equality, addressed the press alongside her family and Gomes’s relatives. “Marielle’s greatest legacy is to show that women, Black people, and slum dwellers deserve to live in their places. When they killed my sister, they couldn’t have imagined how strongly the country and the world would react. Today is a response; justice has begun. But what we wanted was not to be here because real justice would be to prevent bodies from being dumped,” she said. “We need to end the normalization of violence against Black people, children who are victims of stray bullets, and murdered public figures. We will hold our heads high for Marielle, Anderson, and the right to a dignified life.” 

Ronnie Lessa and Élcio Queiroz executed Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes on March 14, 2018. According to the Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office, which brought the charges, the attack had been planned for three months, starting at the end of 2017.

The defendants, who have been in prison since March 2019, must serve their sentences under a closed prison regime. Lessa is being held at the Tremembé Penitentiary Complex in São Paulo, while his partner, Élcio, is incarcerated in the Papuda Complex in Brasília. Both testified by videoconference during the trial. 

The crime   

In 2018, the brutal murder of Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro councilor elected in 2016, sparked a massive campaign asking, “Who killed Marielle?” The movement took to the streets across the country, putting pressure on Rio’s public authorities to find the perpetrators of the attack.  

In total, five deputies were removed from leading the investigations at the Homicide Police Station of the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police.