Luciana Lima           Reporter Agência Brasil

Brasília – The Brazilian Association of Judges (“Associação de Magistrados Brasileiros – AMB”) has made a formal request for a special task force to investigate the assassination of Patrícia Acioli, a Rio de Janeiro judge who was murdered Thursday night (August 11) as she arrived at her home in Niteroi.

In a letter to the minister of Justice, José Eduardo Cardozo, the president of the AMB, Nelson Calandra, said that the association was demanding a rapid and energetic investigation of the crime.

“When a judge is attacked, the state is attacked, along with democracy and Brazilian society,” said the letter. “We will not rest until those responsible for this atrocity have been found and punished.”

Patricia Acioli was a judge at the 4th Criminal Court in São Gonçalo, in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. She was known for dealing sternly with death squads, milicias and local mafia-type organizations that control contraband fuel distribution and illegal transportation in the region (“mafia dos vans”). The groups known as “milicias,” are generally former policemen (sometimes firemen, as well) who elbow out drug traffickers so they can exploit slum areas. Judge Acioli took an especially hardliner position on cases of police abuse, having sent a number of corrupt policemen to jail. There is strong evidence that some of these groups were in favor of her death.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - Magistrados pedem força-tarefa para esclarecer assassinato de juíza