(IPYS/IFEX) – On 12 July 2005, “Jornal Já” newspaper, published in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, was ordered to pay a 31,600 real (approx. US$13,400) fine to Julieta Diniz Vargas Rigotto, mother of State Governor Germano Rigotto, of the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (Partido do Movimento Democrático, PMDB), after a court […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 12 July 2005, “Jornal Já” newspaper, published in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, was ordered to pay a 31,600 real (approx. US$13,400) fine to Julieta Diniz Vargas Rigotto, mother of State Governor Germano Rigotto, of the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (Partido do Movimento Democrático, PMDB), after a court found newspaper owner Elmar Bones, who had written the article, guilty of “insult” and defamation. The sentence cannot be appealed.
The controversial May 2001 article, entitled “The Rigotto case: US$65 million missing and two unexplained deaths”, alleged that the governor’s then deceased brother, Lindomar Rigotto, had embezzled money from the state electricity company. The Rigotto family filed two separate lawsuits against the paper – alleging damage to the reputation of the deceased – and lost in court three times. In July 2005, they filed a new suit before Porto Alegre Judge Giovanni Conti, who found “Jornal Já” guilty.
Lindomar Rigotto was murdered in a car chase involving four armed men during the 1999 Carnival. At the time, he was being investigated for corruption and the death of a 24-year-old woman who had fallen, nude, from his apartment window. After his death, the second case was closed. An investigation on the missing funds has been in progress since 1999, and is kept secret by the Justice Department.
“Jornal Já” is a monthly neighbourhood newspaper that won the “Esso” prize, Brazil’s most important journalism award, in 2004 in the category of reporting. “We are more motivated than ever,” said Renan Antunes de Souza, the paper’s editor.
This alert was prepared by IPYS with information provided by the Brazilian Investigative Journalism Association (Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo, ABRAJI).
