Brazil cartel boss kills woman in his prison cell!

Paraguayans have been left shocked and outraged after a jailed cartel boss murdered a young woman inside his high-security cell, in an apparent attempt to avoid extradition to neighbouring Brazil.

The case has underscored the scale of criminal impunity in the landlocked South American country – and fuelled fears of more violence to come.

         

On Saturday afternoon, soon after a visit by his lawyer, Pinheiro received Lidia Meza, 18, alone in his cell.

According to Paraguayan authorities, Pinheiro then knocked Meza out before stabbing her 16 times with a dessert knife. She was brought to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

It is unclear why Meza was in his cell. Suggestions she was a sex worker have been denied by her parents. Local media reported it was her second visit.

Pinheiro’s lawyer immediately called for his client to face murder charges in Paraguay.

But Paraguay’s president, Mario Abdo Benítez, instead ordered Pinheiro’s extradition to Brazil, where he is now being held in solitary confinement in a maximum-security federal prison.

In an emotional video shared on social media, a mourner at Meza’s funeral wept as she followed the ambulance Meza’s family borrowed to use as a hearse.   

“They’re killing us like dogs,” she said. “A handful of Brazilians come and do whatever they want in our country, kill a tiny girl from the countryside, seize the border and run everything from a jail cell. Everything is for sale for a few dirty pesos.”

Since late 2016 Comando Vermelho has been locked in a bloody battle with a rival cartel, Primero Comando da Capital (First Capital Command), for control of cocaine and marijuana-smuggling routes from Paraguay.

Analysts fear that the as-yet unclear security policies of Brazil’s rightwing president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, could push some crime groups across the border.

The result could be even worse corruption and violence, said Andrew Nickson, a Paraguay expert at the University of Birmingham. “The Paraguayan state hardly has the power to withstand what they are doing even now,” Nickson said.

The Guardian.