Ana Lídia Braga

 The Ana Lídia case refers to the kidnapping and murder of Ana Lídia Braga ( Brasília, July 10, 1966 – Brasília, September 12, 1973 ), crimes committed in Brazil in September 1973. She is buried in the Campo da Esperança Cemetery in Brasília.

Ana Lídia's family lived in SQN 405, Block O, Asa Norte in Brasília. She was 7 years old when she was kidnapped from the Madre Carmen Sallés School, where her parents had left her at 1:50 pm on September 11, 1973. The girl was tortured, raped, and killed by asphyxiation. According to the experts who analyzed her body, death would have occurred at 6 am the following day. Her body was found by police officers, between Avenida das Nações and the University of Brasília (UnB), at 1 pm on September 12. It was half-buried in a ditch, near which there were motorcycle tire tracks and two condoms, evidence that could easily lead investigators to the culprits of the crime. The girl was naked, with cigarette burns and badly cut hair.

The case had several flaws in the forensics and police investigation. The military said at the time that "groups in the service of subversion took advantage of the event to launch false accusations and tarnish the names of figures in the current government".

History

Children of suspected politicians

The suspects in the crime were the girl's brother, Álvaro Henrique Braga (who, along with his girlfriend, Gilma Varela de Albuquerque, allegedly sold the girl to traffickers), and some children of politicians and important members of Brasilia's high society. But the culprits were never identified, and the Ana Lídia case became yet another symbol of impunity during the military dictatorship.

Investigations indicated that Ana Lídia had been taken to the property of the then Vice-Leader of ARENA in the Senate, Eurico Resende, in Sobradinho. Witnesses said that at night, Álvaro and his girlfriend left and left the girl with Alfredo Buzaid Júnior, Eduardo Ribeiro Resende (son of the senator, owner of the property), and Raimundo Lacerda Duque, a known drug trafficker from Brasília. When they returned to the property, they found Ana Lídia dead. As the main suspect was the son of the then Minister of Justice Alfredo Buzaid, a controversy formed around the case.

Case hushed up by the military dictatorship.

At a time in national history when the Brazilian military dictatorship controlled investigations concerning it, there was no rigor in the investigations. There was also great passivity on the part of Ana Lídia's own family.

The power of the dominant force to stifle the dissemination of the matter can be measured by an episode cited by Javier Godinho in his work "The Muzzled Press". On May 20, 1974, newspapers, radio stations, and television stations across the country received the following statement from the Federal Police Department:

By order of higher authorities, the dissemination of comments, transcripts, references, and other materials regarding the Ana Lídia and Rosana case through written, spoken, or televised media is strictly prohibited.

Federal Police 

Reopening of the process

Thirteen years after the crime was committed, the case was reopened due to new information emerging about the murder. Reporter Mônica Teixeira, from Vídeo Abril, claimed to have witnesses who could prove that the perpetrator was the son of the former Minister of Justice, Alfredo Buzaid, and that, despite press reports that he had died in an accident two years after the crime, Mônica asserted that he was still alive in 1985. Once again, strange events occurred: some of the witnesses simply died after being summoned to testify, and the exhumation of the body was not immediately permitted, leading to the case being closed again due to alleged lack of evidence.

In 1986, a year after the initial request, the exhumation of Alfredo Buzaid Júnior's body was authorized. However, due to a mistake or negligence by the police, the body exhumed was that of Felício Buzaid, the accused's grandfather, who died in 1966. After a second attempt, a second corpse, supposedly that of Alfredo Buzaid Júnior, was delivered to the IML (Institute of Legal Medicine). For some unexplained reason, the corpse's teeth had been removed, making identification by dental records impossible (DNA testing was not available at the time). Even so, in July 1986, forensic pathologist José Antônio Mello declared that the buried body was indeed that of Alfredo Buzaid Júnior.

Outcome

To this day, there has been no resolution to the case, and no one has been punished for the crimes. In honor of the girl, an area of ​​the so-called City Park, near the entrance to the South Hotel Sector, where several playgrounds are installed, has been named Ana Lídia Park. Due to the circumstances of her martyrdom, her tomb is one of the most visited in the city cemetery, being venerated by devotees who believe in miracles granted by the girl, now considered a saint.

The three suspects mentioned in the case died in different circumstances years after the events. Alfredo Buzaid Júnior died in 1975 in a car accident. Eduardo Ribeiro Resende committed suicide in 1990. Raimundo Lacerda Duque died in 2005 due to health complications related to alcoholism.