Brazilian police on
Friday arrested six adults and detained a teenager suspected of
taking part in the murder of Roberto Bardella, a 52-year-old
from Jesolo near Venice killed by drug traffickers Thursday
after entering Rio's Morro dos Prazeres favela by mistake on his
motorbike. The seven were identified from mug shots of wanted
persons by the victim's cousin, Rino Polato, 59, who reportedly
witnessed the murder but was spared. Polato was reportedly held
in a car for two hours after Bardella's body was put in the
boot, police said. The two Italians were returning from a visit
to the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio and a faulty
satellite device took them through the favela on their way to a
southern Rio beach, they said. Bardella is the third Italian
killed in Brazil in less than a month. Earlier this week Alberto
Baroli, 51, from Milan but residing in Paris, was murdered by a
gang who entered his seaside vacation home in the northeastern
state of Ceara'. On November 17, Ragusa native Pamela
Canzonieri, 39, was strangled in her apartment in the Morro di
San Paolo tourist resort in the state of Bahia.
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