Brazil: Former congresswoman sentenced to 50 years in prison for husband’s murder

On Sunday, former Brazilian congresswoman and gospel singer, Flordelis dos Santos de Souza, was sentenced to 50 years and 28 days in prison after she was found guiltyof "orchestrating" the murder of her husband, pastor Anderson do Carmo whowas shot in 2019 at their home in Rio de Janeiro.

The 61-year-old and her husband were seen as a power couple amongthe country’s Evangelical Christian movement and were also famous for her 55 children, most of whom are adopted from the favelas or slums in Rio de Janeiro. The sentence was handed in a Rio court after she and several of their children were also accused of being complicit in the pastor's murder.

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Do Carmo, in 2019, was shot at least 30 times in the garage of their house in Rio after which dos Santos claimed that armed robbers on motorcycles had chased them and attacked her husband. In 2020, prosecutors charged Dos Santos with “orchestrating the homicide, enlisting to take part in the crime and attempting to disguise it as an armed robbery.” They also suspected that this move was made in order to gain control over the couple’s finances which were controlled by Do Carmo.

She had also tried to poison her late husband with cyanide at least six times before arranging his killing, said a report by the Guardian. Simone dos Santos Rodrigues, the former congresswoman’s biological daughter wassentenced to 31 years in prison and one of her biological sons wasfound guilty of being a gunman who shot the pastor,has been sentenced to33 years in prison. Furthermore, four of her adopted children and a granddaughter were also sentencedearlier this year during the trial.

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Last week Flordelis’s lawyers argued that she had no knowledge of her husband’s murder being carried out and said that they did so to protect her from alleged sexual and physical abuse perpetrated by her husband. However, the judge swiftly rejected these claims and said that she was the one who ordered the crime and made it look like a robbery gone wrong.

The court also said she ordered the killing “because the victim kept a strict control of the family finances and administered conflicts rigidly, refusing to give preferential treatment to the ex-lawmaker’s closest (friends) in detriment to other members of the family.” The sentence marked the end of one of the most sensational crimes in Brazil’s recent history.

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Dos Santos was born and raised in one of the favelas in Rio named Jacarezinho where she began her singing career in the 90s and met Do Carmo in 1994 and founded the Community of the Evangelical Ministry Flordelis. In 2018, she was elected to Brazil’s congress for the conservative Social Democratic Party and was ousted amid allegations of killing her husband in August 2021 in an almost unanimous vote which stripped dos Santos of her parliamentary immunity.

(With inputs from agencies)

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