Brazil pursues accountability for execution of Carlos Marighella

Brazil’s Federal Prosecution Office on Monday filed a new civil suit in order to hold 37 former agents of Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985) liable for the execution of communist guerrilla Carlos Marighella, who was murdered in 1969.

Prosecutors request that those involved in the murder lose their pensions, reimburse the Brazilian government for expenses incurred in compensating the victim’s family, and pay financial compensation for the collective moral damages caused to society by the political repression. In the case of deceased defendants, reparations would be paid by the heirs.

Among the long-deceased defendants is police officer Sérgio Paranhos Fleury, who led the operation that found and killed Mr. Marighella in São Paulo. Mr. Fleury died in 1979 during a ride on a speedboat.

Mr. Marighella led the National Liberation Alliance (ALN), a communist armed resistance group opposed to Brazil’s right-wing dictatorship, and was considered the regime’s “public enemy number one.” Officers set up an ambush, caught him unarmed, and “although they could have taken him prisoner, executed him,” the Federal Prosecution Office said in a statement.

Another late defendant is physician Abeylard Orsini (1927-2021), one of the authors of the autopsy report, which “omitted the true circumstances of Mr. Marighella’s death in order to endorse the official version that the activist had fought back after being arrested,” prosecutors added. 

“The document failed to mention signs of execution, such as evidence of the close range of the shots and injuries that indicated the victim had tried to protect himself from the gunfire.” Forging autopsy reports was a common practice at the time, and the  coroner’s office “actively collaborated with repressive agencies throughout the dictatorship to cover up crimes and exempt agents from responsibility.”

Brazil’s 1979 Amnesty Act protected people in both the military regime and the leftist guerrillas from being held liable for political and related crimes. Left-wing politicians have since argued for a review of its effects. In Monday’s statement, prosecutors argue that the Amnesty Act and the statute of limitations cannot apply to this case, because it concerns crimes against humanity.

Mr. Marighella’s story is narrated in the 2019 biopic ‘Marighella,’ directed by Wagner Moura and starring Seu Jorge as the title character. Walter Salles’s new film ‘I’m Still Here,’ which won the Best Screenplay Award at the Venice Film Festival last weekend, tells a different episode of the dictatorship, the 1971 disappearance of Congressman Rubens Paiva.