A POLICEMAN, charged with the killing of eight Brazilian street children nearly three years ago, was found guilty yesterday on six counts of murder and sentenced to a total of 309 years in jail.
Marcus Vinicius Borges Emmanuel (29) was also was found guilty of five attempted murders, two counts of grievous bodily harm followed by murder and one count of grievous bodily harm.
Earlier he told the court he had taken part in the shooting in which eight children were killed causing a worldwide outcry. Borges Emmanuel was the first person to stand trial for the killings.
Six of the children died when men opened fire indiscriminately at about 70 children playing or sleeping on the steps of the Candelaria church early on July 23rd, 1993. The bodies of two more were found nearby.
Wagner dos Santos one of the survivors of the massacre and a key witness at the trial, told the court how he and two minors had been bundled into a car by a group of four men which included Borges Emmanuel.
"One of the men held a gun to my head and said I'm going to blow your brains out," the witness said.
He said that while in the car he was shot, lost consciousness and regained it later near a modern art museum with his two colleagues lying dead beside him.
He arrived in Brazil for the trial todays ago from Switzerland where he fled after two at tempts on his life following the killings. He has been under police protection since his return.
The trials of three other men, two policemen and a civilian, accused of taking part in the massacre were adjourned at the request of defence lawyers who asked for them to be judged separately. They are due to reappear on May 27th.
Borges Emmanuel and the three men currently on trial were arrested shortly after the massacre. But another police officer gave himself up last week and confessed to the crime, saying he committed it with two of the officers facing trial and a fourth man who was murdered in 1994.
Nearly three years on, rights activists say the number of children living on the streets of Rio de Janeiro has grown, with estimates ranging between 750 and 2,500.
The National Movement of Street Children says four minors are killed every day in Brazil, mainly the victims of police, death squads (often off duty police officers) or drugs gangs.