Almost two years after being convicted for the murder of councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes, former military police officer Ronnie Lessa spoke for the first time about the case in an interview with TV Record's Doc Investigação program, aired this Thursday. Lessa is believed to have been the one who fired the shots that killed the couple in March 2018, in Rio de Janeiro.
During the conversation, Lessa revealed that the first target of the group he was part of was not Marielle Franco, but rather politician Marcelo Freixo, who at the time was a Federal Deputy for PSOL. According to him, Freixo had been considered an enemy because of his work on the Militia Parliamentary Investigation Committee, but the former PM denied he would participate in an assassination attempt against the parliamentarian.
The motivation for Marielle's murder would be related to the councilwoman's work on land division in Rio's West Zone. Lessa stated that Marielle's intervention would disrupt plans of his and his allies, who intended to build a housing development in the area. According to what Lessa said he heard from Domingos Brazão, another accused of the crime, Marielle would not allow the construction and threatened to expose the scheme, which led to the decision to eliminate her.
