Veteran political reporter
Ida, 53, was in a car with a female companion in late evening when an
unidentified man approached on a bicycle. The assailant ordered the woman out
of the vehicle and shot Ida several times, press reports
said. The journalist had served as the city government’s communications
secretary, was a founder of the news site Midianews, and wrote an
opinion column for the news website Olhar Direto.
Police initially said they
were investigating the murder as a crime of passion, press reports said.
After members of Congress asked that police elaborate on that claim, a judge
ruled on August 11 that the investigation be carried out in secret, press reports
said. In an interview
on the day of the ruling, Antônio Carlos Garcia,
head of the local homicide unit, said police had not ruled out any lines of
investigation.
Laura Petraglia, a reporter
for Olhar Direto, told CPJ that at the time of his death, Ida had been
investigating a story concerning local political corruption. The president of
the state legislative assembly, José Riva, said that
Ida had recently told him he was receiving threats but did not elaborate on
their nature. The local journalists union asked that federal police take on the
case because local authorities weren’t paying sufficient attention to a
professional motive, Diario de Cuiabá reported.