One Very Wrong Election Law

[Texsox]

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilian police said on Tuesday they will resume the hunt for a suspected serial killer who was freed due to Brazil's electoral law despite confessing to raping and stoning to death five women.

 

The law, designed to ensure fair elections, prohibits anyone from being arrested and held by police from five days before an election until 48 hours after polls close, unless they are caught in the act or have already been sentenced.

 

Brazil held general elections on Sunday. A second-round run-off between the two leading presidential candidates takes place on October 29.

 

Police said they had uncovered the women's corpses in varying degrees of decay on Friday. Edson Barbosa Alves de Matos, 25, confessed to raping and stoning them to death. Two of the victims have been identified.

 

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"We will begin looking for him again after 5:00 p.m.," spokeswoman for the Sao Paulo security secretariat Camilla Silveira told Reuters. "He had confessed to the killings but Brazilian law required we release him."

 

Police will also resume the hunt for a 23-year-old law student who had confessed to hiring hitmen who killed his mother but was sprung from police custody. The gunmen are also being sought.

 

Adriano Saddi Lima Oliveira told police he paid 40,000 reais ($18,433) to hitmen who killed his mother Marisa, a real estate tycoon, several months ago, Silveira said. Oliveira told police his mother was squandering his inheritance going out with her boyfriend.

 

Brazil's electoral law aims to curb heavy-handed tactics, such as local political chiefs trying to hang onto power by having opponents arrested and locked up until polls close.