Police in Brazil have arrested three suspects in the 2013 murder of newspaper editor Jose Roberto Ornelas de Lemos, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune.
De Lemos, editor of daily Hora H daily, was gunned down while at a bakery in the Rio de Janeiro suburb of Nova Iguaçu. A post mortem examination found that he had been shot 44 times.
State police, in identifying the suspects as Vanderson Da Silva, Braulino Brejeiro Fernandes and Celso Henrique Batista Ribeiro, said they were members of a gang led by a police officer who was also arrested.
Police inspector Fabio Cardoso told reporters that the gang - a “militia” specialising in extortion and protection rackets - viewed De Lemos as an “obstacle” to their planned expansion into the Nova Iguaçu area.
At the time of his murder, it was revealed that Ornelas de Lemos had received threats about his reporting. A police officer said: “It was a combative newspaper, that frequently denounced irregularities and corruption,” he said.
The daily, known for its coverage of crime, was owned by Ornelas de Lemos’s father, José Lemos.
Sources: Latin American Herald Tribune/INSI
