Brazil arrests two men for plotting massacre

Rio de Janeiro, March 23 (IANS/EFE) Two men accused of planning a massacre of university students in Brasilia and maintaining a Web site on which they incited violence against blacks, women and homosexuals were arrested Thursday.

The suspects, identified as Emerson Eduardo Rodrigues and Marcello Valle Silveira Mello, intended to attack a student residence at the Universidad de Brasilia, said a spokesperson for the Federal Police in Curitiba, the capital of the southern state of Parana.

Inspector Fluvio Cardinelli told a press conference that authorities seized from the two men a diagram of a house in Brasilia where UB students frequently hold parties.

A text published in January on the web page allegedly maintained by Rodrigues and Mello characterized humanities students and professors at UB as "cancer" and "parasites", EFE learned Thursday.

"Strong indications" exist that the arrested men were in contact with and encouraged the perpetrator of the April 2011 massacre of 12 children at a school in Rio de Janeiro, police said.

One of the entries on the web site made reference to the massacre carried out by Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, who committed suicide after gunning down the kids.

The arrested pair told the police that De Oliveira asked them how he should proceed to carry out that massacre, Cardinelli said.

--IANS/EFE

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