Court holds final hearing on Vilella case.
Two defendants in the case are scheduled to be heard this Friday; the former minister, his wife, and their maid were stabbed to death in 2009; the judge is expected to decide whether the accused will face a jury trial.
Brasilia 247 – The Jury Court of Brasilia will hold this Friday (30) the last hearing to question those accused of the triple murder of former Minister of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) José Guilherme Villela, his wife, Maria Carvalho Mendes Villela, and the housekeeper, Francisca Nascimento da Silva, in August 2009 in block 113 South.
The press office of the Federal District Court of Justice informed that the interrogation of Paulo Cardoso Santana and Francisco Mairlon Barros Aguiar, allegedly an accomplice in the murders, is scheduled for this Friday. They are defendants in the case along with the couple's daughter, Adriana Villela, and the former doorman of the building where the family lived, Leonardo Campos Alves. After the interrogations, the judge will issue a ruling determining whether the accused will be submitted to a jury trial or not.
In the last hearing, held on the 16th, Leonardo Alves stated that he had been tortured for more than 24 hours by the police to confess to the crime in the 113 South district. In November 2010, Alves was arrested in Montalvânia (MG) and at the time stated that he committed the crime because he had been "mistreated" by the former minister when asking for a job. In court, he said that he made the statements after being tortured.
The couple's daughter, Adriana Villela, who also testified on March 16 for more than seven hours, criticized the way the Civil Police conducted the investigations into the triple murder. According to Adriana, the Civil Police never had any interest in solving the crime and tried throughout to produce evidence against her.
With information from G1.