Killing of Brazil lawmaker's brother could be politically motivated, minister says

Physician Diego Ralf Bomfim, the brother of leftist lawmaker Samia Bomfim, was shot dead with his colleagues at a beachside food stand in Rio's Barra da Tijuca neighborhood, police said in a statement. "Given the hypothesis of the execution being linked to the political activity of two federal lawmakers, I have ordered federal police to follow the probe," Justice Minister Flavio Dino wrote on social media.

The fatal shooting of a Brazilian congresswoman's brother and his two companions in Rio de Janeiro late on Wednesday could possibly be a case driven by political motivations, a justice minister said on Thursday. Physician Diego Ralf Bomfim, the brother of leftist lawmaker Samia Bomfim, was shot dead with his colleagues at a beachside food stand in Rio's Barra da Tijuca neighborhood, police said in a statement.

"Given the hypothesis of the execution being linked to the political activity of two federal lawmakers, I have ordered federal police to follow the probe," Justice Minister Flavio Dino wrote on social media. Samia Bomfim, who has represented Sao Paulo state in the lower house of Brazil's Congress since 2019, is the partner of fellow congressman Glauber Braga, a federal lawmaker from Rio state since 2011.

Both are members of the leftist Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL). In 2018, PSOL member and Rio councilwoman Marielle Franco was murdered in a case that investigators have called a political assassination carried out by paid hit men. Investigators are also exploring the possibility that one of the murdered physicians had been mistaken for a local crime boss who frequented the same beachside food stand, according to one person involved in the probe.

Security camera footage circulated by local media shows three gunmen in black emerging from a white car and running toward the food stand as they opened fire before escaping in the vehicle. "From what we saw in footage released by media, everything points to an execution," Braga and Bomfim said in a statement released by PSOL lawmaker Fernanda Melchionna.

"We demand immediate and in-depth investigations, as well as the identification and arrest of the perpetrators." Ralf Bomfim was in the company of three fellow physicians at the food stand when they came under gunfire. Two of them, Marcos Corsato and Perseu Almeida, were also shot dead onsite. The third, Daniel Proenca, has been hospitalized.

They were in Rio for an international orthopedics congress. "I received the news of their execution with great sadness and indignation," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wrote on social media. "I extend my solidarity to their families. Federal police are following the case."

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