Lula says Brazil will seek independent probe into 'disastrous' Rio police raid

5/11/2025 7:17

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Tuesday his government will push for an independent probe into a police raid last week in Rio de Janeiro that killed 121 people, including four police officers.



"It's important to see under what conditions it happened," he told reporters in Belem ahead of the COP30 climate summit. "The judge's order was for arrest warrants to be served, not a mass killing - and yet there was a mass killing."



The operation on October 28 was the deadliest in Brazil's history. It targeted the Comando Vermelho gang that controls the drug trade in several favelas - poor, densely populated neighborhoods woven through the city's hilly terrain.



Rio de Janeiro state officials described it as a success. State Governor Claudio Castro said the "only real victims" were the slain officers and that all the others killed were criminals.