Journalist is murdered in Brazil

Auro Ida, a political reporter was murdered in the night of July 21st , last Thursday, while was leaving his girlfriend at home. The crime happened in Cuiabá one of the main cities of center-western Brazil. Witnesses say that a man in a bicycle approached the car where the couple was, told the woman to get out of the car and shot the journalist. The homicide fled cycling.

Bianca Nayara Correa de Souza, Auro Ida’s nineteen-year-old girlfriend, told the news portal “24 Horas News” that she couldn’t see the face of the shooter because the local was badly lighted. “I haven’t seen any bike. I saw vaguely that it seems to be a black man, which held a gun. He told me to get out, and when I was entering my house he started shooting and killed my boyfriend”, she stated to the news portal.

The first suspicion was that it was a crime of passion, as nothing was taken from the car and that Bianca broke off a marriage three months ago. She affirmed that is going to ask for police protection for her and her family.

Nevertheless, the state representative José Riva revealed in an interview for the website “Midianews” that Auro Ida had said a few times that he was being threatened due to his journalistic investigations. Alline Marques, his work colleague in the website “Olhar Direto”, said that he never asked for help in order to guarantee his security.  She came to know about the threats on the interview with Riva, but does not discard the possibility. “He did many investigations”, remember.

 

Police investigation

On the 22nd,  no one had been heard because of a strike of the Civil Police in the state of Mato Grosso (where Cuiabá is). The situation made the journalists trade union (Sindjor) and the OAB (organization that unites all lawyers in Brazil) request a intervention from the federal police in the case.

The Sindjor’s president, Téo Menezes, explained on the OAB/MT’s website why could be political motivation on the crime: “people say that Auro Ida was coming to find important information about irregular payments made by the government. We don’t have how to confirm that because Auro Ida was very discrete in his journalistic investigations, but I am sure that with the help of OAB/MT we will solve this case”.

The journalist Auro Ida lived in Mato Grosso 28 years. Nowadays he worked as a colunist on the website Olhar Direto.