Four men were shot at the beach bar in the Barra da Tijuca area of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, early Tuesday morning. Three of them died and the fourth was injured and taken to hospital according to the Rio police, AP writes.
The men are said to have been doctors and visited the city after attending an international orthopedics conference in São Paolo.
Camera surveillance that the local newspaper O Globo is said to have seen shows how a group of people dressed in black arrive at the beach bar in a car, move towards the men’s table and start firing shots. According to O Globo, the men had just paid the bill and were on their way back to their hotel across the street when the perpetrators opened fire.
May be politically motivated
One of the victims is said to have been the brother of the Brazilian politician Sâmia de Souza Bomfim. Now Brazilian authorities are investigating whether it may have been a politically motivated execution, on behalf of the Brazilian Minister of Justice Flávio Dino, AP writes.
– It is, of course, an investigation into a serious crime. I am sure that the civilian police, the entire homicide and personal protection division and other civilian police units are absolutely committed to solving the case as soon as possible, Henrique Damasceno, director of the homicide and personal protection division, told AFP.
Sâmia de Souza Bomfim and her husband belong to the same leftist party as Marielle Franco, a government minister in Rio who was shot in 2018. The murder remains unsolved.