Thirty days after the murder of Luis Carlos Barbon Filho on May 5, 2007 the investigations continue under way, but no suspect has yet been detained. Pressure from domestic and international press and local entities led to the investigations being transferred from the local police to a nearby precinct with the involvement of São Paulo state police, indicating that those involved in the murder might be linked to the municipal government or police. The transfer of the case to another city means the city officials will not be able to put any pressure on those handling the inquiries into the crime.
Police Captain Gilberto de Aquino of the General Investigation Unit in San Carlos (a city near Porto Ferreira) reported on June 7, 2007 that he had asked for more time to conclude the police inquiries, as Barbon Filho was a controversial figure and he had more than one suspect in sight. “Who did has not yet been identified and we are awaiting the results of the forensic reports,” he said.
The threats to the victim’s family members ceased. Friends of Barbon Filho, however, are asking the press not to let the crime become forgotten. Radio Porto FM radio station show host Jota Reis believes that if they are not careful local journalists could be in danger in making any reference to the case. In addition, the police chief himself recognizes that the denunciations Barbon Filho used to make had not been verified. “If they were not properly verified, was Borbon Filho’s death worth it?” the police chief, speaking personally, wondered.

Two shots silence Luis Carlos Barbon Filho

Until recently Porto Ferreira, 142 miles from São Paulo, was famous only as the Artistic Ceramics Capital, due to the factories dotted along the highway into town. In 2003 a scandal involving local city council members, businessmen and merchants accused of sexual exploitation of minors made the city of some 54,000 inhabitants known nationally. The case, which had wide repercussions, went on to become virtually forgotten, to the point that those accused, most of them found guilty and convicted, were able to get lighter sentences. But the story hit the headlines again when on May 5, 2007 two helmeted men on a motorcycle murdered Luis Carlos Barbon Filho, a controversial, incisive journalist who in the newspaper Realidade had exposed the participation of politicians in the 2003 scandal.
More recently Barbon Filho had been making strongly-worded allegations on Radio Porto FM and in the newspaper Jornal do Porto in Porto Ferreira regarding wrongdoing by local police officers and politicians. The murder occurred when Barbon Filho, 37, was at the Bar das Araras tavern, near the Porto Ferreira bus terminal, sitting at a sidewalk table. He was chatting with the owner of the bar. Around 9:00 p.m. the proprietor went to answer the telephone. At that moment two persons arrived on a motorcycle. One of them fired a caliber 12 weapon, one of the shots hit Barbon Filho in the side and the other his leg. He was taken to hospital, where he died.
Police Chief Eduardo Henrique Palmeira Campos, in charge of the investigations at the outset, immediately theorized that the murder was a reprisal for some denunciation Barbon Filho had made in the newspapers or on the radio where he worked. The characteristics of the crime – in which a caliber 12 weapon was used and no traces were left – indicated that the killers were professionals.
Attorney Ricardo Ramos, who offered to help Barbon Filho’s widow, Katia Rosa Camargo, dismissed the possibility that the murder might be linked to the denunciations made in 2003. Ramos, who was also the lawyer for one of those accused in the 21003 scandal, said that he has approached Barbon Filho’s widow because he and her late husband had had close ties, and that in fact the convicted city council members had become “friends” of the journalist. One of the accused – a client of Ramos and a local businessman – is regarded as a fugitive from justice. Ramos claims, however, that his client “only went fishing and forgot to come back.”
Ramos is determined to banish the suspicions about his client and the others implicated. So much so that when the national press reported on the murder and recalled the article Barbon Filho had written in 2003 he got in touch with Brazil’s leading television network, Globo, to clarify that Barbon Filho had planned to write a new report to tell the “real” story of the scandal and say that his recent criticisms had nothing to do with that situation.
Ramos accompanies Barbon Filho’s widow when she gives statements to the police or grants interviews. She lives in fear with her two children – a 14-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son who is a replica in miniature of his father, as quick and audacious as he was. Immediately after the murder the house where they live was shot at and she began to receive early-morning phone calls from someone who remained silent on the line. A suspicious vehicle was seen circling the home. In addition, Barbon Filho’s father, who lives in Tambaú, received threats and intimidations.
A week after the murder and after being warned about the risk the widow and children were facing, Katia left the house wither he son and daughter. She does not intend to stay in one place for very long.

The voice of the people and divine protection

“Barbon used to say that he was the voice of the people,” recalls Katia Rosa Camargo, with whom the journalist lived for the last 15 years. They had met at Radio Primavera, where he was selling advertising and she worked as a secretary.
Barbon Filho wanted to run again as a candidate for the city council in the upcoming elections – he had run in 2004 as a member of the Green Party (PV), getting only 80 votes. Thanks to his radio talks a lot of people went to him to make denunciations. Barbon Filho would speak bluntly, and with a lot of grammatical mistakes that showed his lack of schooling, about the trash and potholes in the streets, the lack of street lighting and especially what he regarded as injustice towards poor people in general in strongly-worded discourses against the municipal government. “I hope that every time I come here I can speak out and act as many people want to but can’t and that I can represent that suffering population mistreated for no reason by this administration that calls itself of the people,” Barbon Filho said in one of his last appearances on Radio Porto FM.
His income depended mainly on the sale of advertising spots and any money left over in a month he spent on building the family home, Katia says. The aim was to build a pool and a barbecue grill there and rent them out for parties “and in that way increase his monthly income.” According to Katia the telephone in the house has been disconnected just before her husband’s death to save money and avoid any threats.
Katia says that her husband received hand-written notes that said he was going to be killed. He did not take much notice of the matter, regarding it as only a way of scaring him. Two years ago someone threw a bottle filled with gasoline at his house, but luckily it fell into a drain and failed to explode. “Barbon said he was scared of nothing before the man with the blue eyes (Jesus Christ) was taking care of him – it was him and God,” Katia said.
In the last few days, however, he had ordered a protective wall to be erected around his house to keep out any possible intruders. “He wanted to buy a flak jacket,” Katia said.

His career as a reporter began by sheer chance

Up to the day of the murder the Jornal do Porto in Porto Ferreira used to publish almost every week stories written by Barbon Filho in two broadsheet columns in a box whose size varied depending on the length and content of the denunciation. The text was always accompanied by his photo and byline, as well as his I.D. card number. João Roberto Bellini, one of the owners of Jornal do Porto, says that Barbon Filho was not a member of paper’s editorial staff, but was a stronger and sold ads. “There were times when two weeks would go by without his writing anything,” he added.
The lack of professional accreditation – although his title accompanied his byline – generated discussions before and after his death. His political enemies and the victims of his criticisms accused him of practicing the profession in an undue manner because he had never studied journalism. After his murder the National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj in its Portuguese-language acronym) and the São Paulo Professional Journalists Union issued a note regretting the crime but making it clear he had not been an accredited journalist.
The note declared, “...Luiz (sic) Carlos Barbon Filho, despite calling himself a journalist, was not one either in fact or by right. The newspaper Realidade, which he owned, was closed down because it never complied with the regulations. Barbon Filho was not registered as a journalist, having even been sued for practicing the profession illegally....”
The note was repudiated by human rights and freedom of expression defense groups.
But Barbon Filho himself used to create confusion about this matter. Having been only named for his 2003 report as a finalist for the Esso Journalism Prize (one of the awards most coveted by professional journalists in Brazil), when he worked at Radio Porto FM he was introduced as the “winner” of the prize. In the small town of Porto Ferreira, where practically everybody knows each other and the radio has a very strong presence and political clout, show host João dos Reis, better known as Jota Reis, used to announce, “Once again the reporting team of Porto FM calls upon the controversial journalist Luis Carlos Barbon Filho, winner of the Esso Prize....”
His career as a reporter began by sheer chance. “Barbon Filho was always involved in politics. We created a newspaper to work against the city administration and as I was a politician I could not put the paper in my name, so I put his,” recalls Osmar Villa, currently better known for his sales of motorcycles but at the time of the launch of the newspaper Realidade was a city council member. He is currently alternate city council member for the Liberal Front Party (PFL). He worked with Barbon Filho at Realidade until shortly before the exposure in 2003 of the scandal of sexual exploitation of minors. He was no longer in a position to continue with the business, so transferred it over to his friend.
“He used to say that only death could silence him, because so long as there were incorrect situations he would denounce them,” Villa recalls. “The only problem is that he was manipulated by politics.” He remained friends with Barbon Filho to the last day. As the journalist had no bank account, for example, Villa would cash checks for him. The evening that Barbon Filho was killed they were to go together to a dance.
After the murder journalist Anderson Rosa de Moraes wrote about the newspaper Realidade for the Web site Observatorio da Imprensa, saying, “The objective of founding Realidade was to serve as a channel of expression for those who had no possibility of expressing themselves through the media dominated by government (municipal) advertising and establishment companies.”
Moraes worked with Barbon Filho at Realidade. He says that at that time “Luis Carlos Barbon Filho was still an idealist, a dreamer and the person responsible for advertising.” He adds, “Barbon Filho was semi-literate, like the majority of the Brazilian people, but he had an inestimable merit and was self-taught .... He used to struggle against the financial adversities of the newspaper with a Herculean courage. Watching how the newspaper was made he learned a lot and he ventured onto the path of journalism.” While serving as the newspaper’s ad salesman he also took care of abandoned dogs, vaccinating them and looking after them when they were sick, even though he was not a veterinarian.”
For Carlos Agusto Colussi, one of the editors of Jornal do Porto, Barbon Filho’s murder was a political crime, because he was a political figure and wanted to be in power. “One of his phrases was ‘You’re going to see what happens when I get to a room with air-conditioning – you’re going to freeze.’” Barbon Filho used to being the articles to be published by the paper hand-written, sometimes on wrapping paper, and on other occasions he dictated to Colussi what he wanted to write. For example, he asked for help in drafting the story in which he alleged to the public prosecutor mishandling of funds by the mayor’s office.

The denunciations cited politicians and police officers

Among the denunciations made by Barbon Filho in the Jornal do Porto and on Radio Porto FM one reached the Public Prosecutor’s Office. It concerned a high-bid tender for the lease of a truck to be used for municipal works. “For the sum of 77,500 reais the mayor could have purchased two trucks,” Barbon Filho protested in his radio broadcast.
The Port Ferreira district attorney, Fabio José Moreira dos Santos, reports that civil proceedings were initiated on the basis of Barbon Filho’s statement about the wrongdoing. “Since December 2006, which is when I arrived in the city, that was the only denunciation made by him to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the legal process is under way,” he said.
Barbon Filho spared no effort in criticizing Mayor Mauricio Sponton Rasi. On April 21, 2007, in commenting on the deception of the people over the results of a public call for bids by the mayor’s office, he wrote in Jornal do Porto, “If we had serious politicians the result could be different, but as our mayor is addicted to nepotism it is hardly likely that he would ask his family members and friends and those of his vice mayor that from the first day of his administration are suckling to let go of the breasts of mommy mayor’s office.”
Rasi, who as well as being mayor of Porto Fereira is professor of law at the Camilo Castelo Branco University, was the police officer in charge of investigations in the corruption of teenagers at the time when the scandal was exposed by Barbon Filho in the newspaper Realidade in 2003.
On April 14, 2007 Barbon Filho wrote an article for Jornal do Porto in which he related that he had been contacted by the father of two girls involved in the 2003 scandal to complain of the lack of support on the part of the Guardianship Council (which was supposed to protect the girls as they were minors) and of the mayor’s office.
He wrote, “The Municipal Government, today controlled by a politician indirectly benefiting from those incidents and who also characterized the House of Refuge as a personal achievement, those installations today being in virtual disuse, should have sheltered those girls and their families and given them full social assistance ....”
In other declarations Barbon Filho had earlier insinuated that Rasi, as the police chief responsible for the case, took advantage of the episode (in which a number of city council members ended up in prison) in order to be elected. Shortly before he was murdered he had promised on Radio Porto FM that he would reveal new facts connected with the case.
Rasi filed a libel suit against Barbon Filho in response to the attacks on him. “The attacks continued, but I took the stance that I would not take any further legal action, as I would have to do so every week,” Rasi said. He accuses Barbon Filho of not being a real journalist and of having acted in a sensationalist and biased manner, creating a negative image of Port Ferreira as “the capital of prostitution.”
“After the city council election (in which Barbon Filho obtained few votes) he tried to approach me for me to help him keep the newspaper going, and I refused. I had just taken on the mayor’s role,” Rasi told the IAPA. He added, “That same person (Barbon Filho) who had denounced the city council members (in 2003) when he turns into an ally of the group that he criticizes frequents the radio and the newspaper that are sympathetic to that group. In my view he was a tool of that political group to attack the administration.” The mayor referred to the fact that during the time of the Realidade newspaper Barbon Filho used to attack then mayor André Braga. More recently he had collaborated with Radio Porto FM, which belongs to the Braga family and opposes Rasi.
For this reason while Rasi regrets the death of Barbon Filho he does not accept that he should be treated as a hero. He accepts that the municipal administration should be subject to criticism based on morality and ethics, but not on lies. As for having been singled out as a suspect in the murder, Rasi defends himself, saying, “A year and a half ago they attacked me. If I were going to do anything about that I would not have waited to be questioned by the Deliberative Council over a ridiculous call for bids as little as 70,000 reais for an essential service for the Public Works Department.” Moreover, he added, the attack came from a person who was acting as a group’s political tool.
In an interview with a local radio station Rasi said that Barbon Filho sometimes extorted money from him to not reveal details about a certain person or event. The charge was rejected by Barbon Filho’s widow.
Another victim of Barbon Filho’s criticisms, independent city council member Gilson Alberto Strozzi, now serving his fifth term, says that he hopes those responsible for the murder are punished. He recalls that Barbon Filho had a problem with him, even before the 2003 exposures, and admits that lately he had been the target of new criticisms and that is why “I was preparing to take legal action against the news outlet in which Barbon Filho published his articles.”
It was in the accounting office of Strozzi’s son where the newspaper Realidade was legally constituted. Strozzi used to write a column under a pseudonym for another paper, where he claimed Barbon Filho was not the owner of Realidade. “He didn’t like it. He didn’t want me to speak out.” The dispute went to the extreme of physical aggression in the Deliberative Council.
According to Strozzi from that time one Barbon Filho increased his attacks against him. “He was a wicked guy,” Strozzi declared. “He sent a photo of me to the television and claimed that I was implicated in the sexual exploitation story. I had just assumed the presidency of the Deliberative Council.” After that, Barbon Filho made even more accusations in Jornal do Porto and on Radio Porto FM. “Strozzi is a person who as a politician is like a cancer for society.... He defends the monthly salary with which his son eats, breastfed by the mayor.”
City Council member César Lanzoni (of the Brazilian Workers Party, PTB) charged and convicted in the 2003 scandal, believes that linking Barbon Filho’s death to that past event only diverts attention from the real guilty parties. “If any university student were to access my case file – 500 pages long – he or she would see that it was a farce,” he declared. Proof of that, Lanzoni said, is that he was re-elected despite being in the Sorocaba Penitentiary, where he remained until November 2006.
Lanzoni believes that he was said to be involved in the scandal by political opponents. “In the end Barbon Filho was looking for supposed victims and as he could not find any he said that he was going to reveal and shed light on all the farce,” he said. He challenges any “serious” journalist to investigate in depth what happened at that time.
More recently, Barbon Filho had proposed defending Alcino Antico, a retired police sergeant and owner of the Bar das Araras tavern, where Barbon Filho was when he was murdered.
On March 31 and April 6, 2007 Antico wrote bylined articles in Jornal do Porto in which he related how his bar has been closed down by municipal inspectors and police officers and he had sought its reopening. But this needed the authorization of other inspectors, as ownership was in the process of being transferred. Barbon Filho stepped in, telephoned the relevant government office and threatened to call the television station if the inspectors did not go to the place to give the necessary authorization and provide the documentation.
Previously, Antico had formally complained that a doctor had stolen money from the establishment – which gave rise to legal action being initiated – and had protested that his bar had been closed down for selling cigarettes illegally imported from Paraguay, accusing the municipal inspectors and police officers of abuse of authority and corruption. He threatened to publish a complaint against certain police officers. “Barbon managed to get the bar reopened,” Katia, Barbon Filho’s widow, recalls. Since then, he and Antico became friends.