Bolsonarista who killed Lula supporter is convicted in MT – 09/04/2023 – Politics

The Justice of Mato Grosso sentenced Rafael Silva de Oliveira, 24, to 14 years in prison for triple murder against Benedito Cardoso dos Santos, 44, during a political discussion in Confresa (1,180 km from Cuiabá) in September last year.

Rafael was a supporter of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and Benedito defended President Lula (PT) in the 2022 elections.

According to the state Public Prosecutor’s Office, the jurors of the Jury Court of Porto Alegre do Norte (1,159 km from Cuiabá) accepted the qualifiers presented in the complaint and considered that the crime occurred for a futile reason, with an appeal that made the victim’s defense difficult and with kinda cruel. The trial took place on the 24th of August.

There will still be an appeal.

According to the police at the time of the crime, the accused stabbed Benedito, his co-worker, to death after a political discussion in the early hours of September 8 at a ceramics factory located in the rural area of ​​Confresa, a municipality of 32,000 inhabitants.

He confessed to the murder in testimony, stating that the discussion became heated at one point and both parties exchanged punches. The confession was a mitigating factor for reducing the sentence at trial.

According to police chief Higo Rafael Ferreira de Oliveira last year, after killing Benedito, the perpetrator tried to decapitate him with an axe, without success, and even filmed the body with his cell phone.

The Civil Police autopsy examination, at the time, concluded that the victim died from 70 knife and ax blows.

In the sentence, Judge Daniel de Sousa Campos said that the circumstances of the crime are serious. “The reasons are unfavorable, due to the futility recognized by the jurors.”

The murder in the interior of Mato Grosso was one of the cases of violence that marked last year’s electoral campaign, based on the polarization between the two candidates.

At the time, the crime generated repudiation from Lula and other presidential candidates, such as Ciro Gomes (PDT), Simone Tebet (MDB) and Soraya Thronicke (União Brasil). The petista referred to the case with terms such as hatred, savagery and intolerance.

“It is with great sadness that I learned of the news of the murder of Benedito Cardoso dos Santos, in the rural area of ​​Confresa. Intolerance took another life. Brazil does not deserve the hatred that has taken hold in that country. Benedict,” wrote Lula in a social network.