Judge Patricia Acioli
Militia groups in Rio de Janeiro are gaining ground, while one of the state’s most effective enforcers of rule of law is now dead.
On Thursday, August 11, 2011 Judge Patrícia Acioli was in her car outside of her house in Níteroi, across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, when hooded gunmen approached her in several vehicles and shot her at close range 21 times.
Judge Acioli had been “marked for death”. She, along with 12 other judges and prosecutors, had received threats from former police officers and criminal gangs who were threatened by her effort to uphold the law. The judge had previously convicted several former police officers with charges of corruption.
It’s crazy season now in India’s capital. But the normally darkly humorous unpredictability of Indian politics has now taken a dark turn with the tragic murder of a