BRASILIA – Rights defenders on Saturday denounced the murder of a retired army colonel who testified last month that Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship tortured its political opponents, saying it was proof that the erstwhile regime’s former agents remain active.
Paulo Malhães, 74, was killed Thursday at his home in suburban Rio de Janeiro by suspected burglars, who stole computers and guns after spending nearly 10 hours inside the residence.
The victim’s wife, Cristina Batista Malhães, who was also inside the home, said the two were tied up in different rooms and that she did not know at what point the robbers killed her husband.
Police say he was suffocated.
The retired colonel testified in March to Brazil’s Truth Commission, which is investigating rights violations during the dictatorship, that he illegally detained and tortured regime opponents.
Malhães, who provided graphic details of the torments, said one of his victims was lawmaker Rubens Paiva, whose daughter said Saturday she is convinced the retired military man was murdered to prevent him from making further revelations.
Vera Paiva told the daily O Dia that agents of the former regime remain active and are seeking to prevent the “historical truth” from being exposed.
She recalled that another admitted torturer, Col. Julio Miguel Molina Dias, who was also implicated in her father’s 1971 kidnap-murder, was killed in an alleged robbery in 2012.
The Truth Commission, established in 2011 by the administration of President Dilma Rousseff, a former leftist militant who suffered torture and was imprisoned for more than two years during the dictatorship, also demanded that authorities get to the bottom of Malhães’s killing.
“The murder and its possible relation with the revelations made by Malhães ... must be rigorously and expeditiously investigated,” the commission said Friday.
Paulo Malhães, 74, was killed Thursday at his home in suburban Rio de Janeiro by suspected burglars, who stole computers and guns after spending nearly 10 hours inside the residence.
The victim’s wife, Cristina Batista Malhães, who was also inside the home, said the two were tied up in different rooms and that she did not know at what point the robbers killed her husband.
Police say he was suffocated.
The retired colonel testified in March to Brazil’s Truth Commission, which is investigating rights violations during the dictatorship, that he illegally detained and tortured regime opponents.
Malhães, who provided graphic details of the torments, said one of his victims was lawmaker Rubens Paiva, whose daughter said Saturday she is convinced the retired military man was murdered to prevent him from making further revelations.
Vera Paiva told the daily O Dia that agents of the former regime remain active and are seeking to prevent the “historical truth” from being exposed.
She recalled that another admitted torturer, Col. Julio Miguel Molina Dias, who was also implicated in her father’s 1971 kidnap-murder, was killed in an alleged robbery in 2012.
The Truth Commission, established in 2011 by the administration of President Dilma Rousseff, a former leftist militant who suffered torture and was imprisoned for more than two years during the dictatorship, also demanded that authorities get to the bottom of Malhães’s killing.
“The murder and its possible relation with the revelations made by Malhães ... must be rigorously and expeditiously investigated,” the commission said Friday.
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