00:00In other news, Brazil's Supreme Court has begun adjudicating in the trial of five men accused of ordering the murder
00:05of human rights activist and Rio city councillor Marielle Franco and her driver in 2018.
00:11A federal deputy and his brother as well as a former police chief are among those accused of commissioning former
00:18security forces to kill Franco over her opposition to the city's militias.
00:23For more on the story, our correspondent Tim Vickery is in Rio for us.
00:27Tim, so why is this such a significant case? I mean, how is it taking on such a dimension?
00:33Yes, it is a cause celebrity because it exposes deep fissures in Brazilian society.
00:40Marielle Franco is very much a representative of the new Brazil.
00:44She was 38 at the time that she suffered this murdering style hit.
00:49She was a highly promising left wing politician, educated, articulate, bisexual, but very, very strongly rooted in the poor communities
01:00where she grew up.
01:01She had a real power of organisation and that obviously made her dangerous to interests.
01:07At a time, nearly eight years ago when she was murdered, at a time when Brazil was drifting to the
01:13right a few months before the election of President Jair Bolsonaro.
01:17And the question, who killed Marielle, took on massive dimension in Brazil, much, much more than one case.
01:26It was tied to, well, why don't the authorities want to investigate?
01:33And as it transpires, those standing charged have links to the state, have links to those authorities.
01:38So this whole case revolves around the question, is this an example of the old Brazil trying to assassinate the
01:47new Brazil?
01:48So then could this be an opportunity, if you will, for Brazil in a way to show that the impunity
01:53of the powerful is no longer tolerated?
01:57Well, that's certainly a message which is being made right at this moment.
02:00The first judge of the four Supreme Court judges is delivering his verdicts and he is saying exactly that.
02:07He is saying that those who perpetrated this crime have the mentality of 50 or 100 years ago where you
02:13could just kill a woman like this and there would be no repercussions.
02:15They have been proved wrong. But if that is a positive message, the case also brings plenty of negative messages
02:22for Brazil about the weakness of the formal state,
02:25corruption inside the formal state and the fact that if the formal state does not control territory,
02:31that power vacuum will be filled either by drug traffic or increasingly by the militias who are staffed very much
02:39by off-duty and retired policemen.
02:42And the essence of this case would seem to be the motive of this case would seem to be Malielli
02:49Franco trying to prevent members of the militia linked to the formal Brazilian states
02:55from illegally taking control of huge swathes of area in Rio de Janeiro and then charging taxes on the on
03:03the residents.
03:05So if there's a positive message to come out that Brazil is making progress in terms of impunity,
03:10there's also a negative message coming out about the weakness of the formal Brazilian state.
03:15So if there's a negative message coming out that Brazil is making progress in the United States,
03:16So if there's a negative message coming out that Brazil is making progress in the United States,
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