Police have finally made their first arrest in the brutal slayings that followed an amateur soccer match in Brazil on June 30.
According to the AP, the killings began after the 20-year-oldreferee, Otavio Jordao da Silva, sent-off Josemir Santos Abreu, 31, from an amateur match in Centro do Meio, in the northern Brazilian state of Maranhao. Reacting tohis expulsion, Abreu threw Silva to the ground. As he rose, Silva pulled a knife and stabbed Abreu in the chest, and the player died on the way to the hospital.
Players and spectators thenrushed towards the referee, tying him up by his arms and legs as Luis Moraes Souza smashed him over the head with a spike and broke a bottle of sugarcane rum on his face. Souza hassince been detained by police. Another man, nicknamed “Pirolo”, then took Silva’s knife and stabbed him in the neck.
Souza’s brother,Francisco, is understood to have then used a sickle to cut off Silva’s arms, legs and head, which he placed on a spike in the middle of the field. Pirolo and Francisco are bothstill at large and understood to be wanted by police.