Brazilian lawmakers visited a high-security prison to question a jailed gang leader, seeking answers to whether leaks from a secret congressional session on prison transfers sparked violence that killed nearly 200 people last month in Sao Paulo.
Reporters were not allowed to be present on Thursday while a congressional panel questioned Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, known as Marcola, who is suspected of having ordered the attacks.
Photographers saw Camacho -- leader of the notorious First Capital Command organized-crime group, better known by its Portuguese initials PCC -- led into the room in handcuffs by two prison guards immediately before the closed-door session began.
The PCC on May 12 unleashed a weeklong killing spree in and around Brazil's largest city that included uprisings in more than 70 prisons and attacks against police stations with grenades and automatic weapons. The attacks were triggered after authorities sought to transfer PCC leaders to remote lockdowns.
The lawmakers said they hoped to find out if Camacho was tipped off to the planned police crackdown against his group. Maria Cristina Rachado and Sergio Wesley da Cunha, two of the gang's lawyers, allegedly bought a tape of police telling lawmakers of their plans two days before the attacks began.
Rachado and da Cunha, who deny any wrongdoing, have been ordered to turn in their passports pending an investigation.
The legislators were also investigating whether the PCC leader, currently held in the Presidente Bernardes state penitentiary, 540km west of Sao Paulo, had negotiated an end to the violence with Sao Paulo city and state authorities.
After five hours of questioning, the lawmakers left the prison without revealing any details of the interview.
Led by congressman Moroni Torgan, the nine-member congressional panel also is examining PCC's alleged involvement in arms trafficking.
Camacho "is the leader of a gang that has had ample access to contraband weapons," Raul Jungmann, a member of the investigative commission, told the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper. "We want to know the route used to traffic these weapons and the PCC's connection to national and international arms trafficking gangs."
Outside the penitentiary, some 30 prison guards dressed as clowns protested what they said were "insecure and precarious working conditions."
"The clown outfits were to underscore the fact that we are treated like clowns and not like professional prison guards," Joao Ferreira da Silva, of the Sao Paulo State Prison Guards Union, said by telephone.
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