Journalist Lucio Flavio Pinto is threatened in Belém, the capital of Pará

Journalist Lucio Flavio Pinto was threatened by a businessman when leaving a restaurant in Belém, the capital of the northern state of Pará, on Saturday, December 10th. The journalist himself published the story on his newspaper.

Pinto is the editor of "Jornal Pessoal", and registered the facts at the police. He says the businessman Rodrigo Chaves told him to stop mentioning his name at his newspaper, otherwise Chaves would beat him up.

Chaves is involved in a lawsuit together with the owners of a major communication group in Northern Brazil. They are accused of taking part at a fraud involving R$ 4 million (USD 2.2 million) from a governmental fund. The crime was first published at "Jornal Pessoal".

Pinto was invited to Abraji annual conference on investigative journalism in 2008, but could not fly from Belém to São Paulo because of a lawsuit against him filed by the owners of the communication group, Romulo and Ronaldo Maiorana.