Brazil mayor was shot in ‘fake attack’ for election boost – but still lost in landslide | Brazil

As campaign strategies go it was unorthodox and illegal: buy an AK-47, hire a pair of phony hitmen, and stage a fake assassination attempt against the mayor that would generate public sympathy and help him win a second term in power.

That, Brazilian police claim, was the gameplan last October when, on the eve of the local election, an armoured vehicle carrying José Aprígio da Silva came under fire in Taboão da Serra, a town on the outskirts of São Paulo.

Silva, the town’s re-election-seeking mayor, was hit in the left shoulder and rushed to the intensive care unit of one of Brazil’s top hospitals as relatives and allies denounced what they called a brazen attempt on his life. “What they did was an atrocity. They went there to murder him,” the mayor’s politician nephew told the local press.

Officials including São Paulo’s rightwing governor, Tarcísio de Freitas, and the country’s leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, weighed in with messages of outrage and support. “This crime must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible must receive exemplary punishment,” Lula declared.

But this week police investigators said they believed the seemingly botched homicide was a fraud and launched a series of raids targeting suspected conspirators code-named Operation Hidden Fact.

The supposed ambush on Silva’s vehicle had, police told reporters, actually been a farce engineered by supporters of the 72-year-old mayor. They allegedly hoped the attack would cause an outpouring of sympathy and boost his campaign in the days before the vote.

Police said evidence gathered as a result of one plea bargain deal suggested Silva’s allies had paid 500,000 reais (about $88,000 or £70,000) for the duo of bogus shooters to launch their fake strike on his SUV.

“It was the mayor himself who asked for [them] to shoot at his car’s windscreen,” one unnamed witness reportedly told police, although investigators admitted they did not yet have conclusive evidence proving the mayor’s involvement in the ruse.

Silva’s lawyers denied he had played any role in the alleged hoax and said he was surprised by claims the attack had been a simulation. “José Aprígio is a victim,” his lawyer, Allan Mohamed, claimed, pointing out that the mayor had been severely injured during the Kalashnikov attack and “nearly lost his life”.

Reports in the Brazilian media suggested Silva’s injuries might well have been unintentional. According to police, plotters failed to take into account that the ballistic protection level of the mayor’s armored vehicle was insufficient to stop the bullets fired by assault rifles like the AK-47.

“Evidence gathered … shows that there was no attempt to murder the mayor … as described by him, but a sham” designed to swing the election his way, a police report quoted by the news website G1 claimed.

If indeed that was the plan, it backfired badly. Silva failed to win re-election with voters instead handing his rival, Daniel Plana Bogalho, a landslide victory.

“I can’t say I’m surprised because we were always sure this was a set-up. I’m happy with the way things have turned out,” Bogalho said on Monday, adding: “I hope now justice is truly done.”