Originally posted by ELPERRO
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Originally posted by TheKza
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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Judge Patricia Acioli was known for wielding a "heavy hammer," especially against rogue police who have formed illegal vigilante gangs. She had put more than 60 officers behind bars, most of them for murder.
The Rio de Janeiro state judge paid for that fearlessness: Acioli was shot to death in front of her house last month. And all of the 21 bullets that hit her came from a lot issued to police, including some in Sao Goncalo, the city where she worked.
While violence and impunity are common in Brazil, the brazen murder of Acioli was an especially heavy blow, a message of intimidation from the vigilante militias.
The slaying was "a wound to the lawful state, to democracy; the figure of the judge is a symbol of justice," said Denise Frossard, a retired judge who presided over some of Rio's first cases against the militias in the 1990s. "If she is a judge and can be killed, how can a citizen feel secure enough to be a witness?"
Indeed, who can believe the Brazilian police when they say Arturo Gatti committed suicide -- especially when their findings have been contradicted by experts in the United States?
Noted forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht has termed the version produced by the initial criminal investigation "pure, unadulterated fiction." Says Wecht, "This case must be reopened if authorities in Brazil have an iota of moral, ethical and legal concern for their reputation."
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