Rio De Janeiro: A retired Brazilian colonel who confessed to torturing and killing detainees during the country`s 1964-1985 military dictatorship died from a heart attack during a break-in at his home, a report said Saturday.
Brazil`s O Globo newspaper cited an autopsy report as saying that Paulo Malhaes, 77, who was found dead at his suburban Rio de Janeiro home, died from "pulmonary edema and myocardial infarction."
The paper quoted pathologist Nelson Massini as saying that the findings appeared to rule out police suspicions that Malhaes was asphyxiated.
"The colonel would have been very worked up by the situation and suffered a heart attack," Massini told the daily.
Malhaes, who last month became the first former regime-era officer to openly admit carrying out torture, died after three intruders broke into his home on Thursday.
Police said earlier they were not discounting any lines of inquiry amid speculation that Malhaes may have been murdered in an act of vengeance or by someone wishing to prevent him from disclosing information about others involved in dictatorship-era atrocities.
Malhaes, protected from prosecution under a 1979 amnesty, told Brazil`s National Truth Commission last month he had taken part in torture and mutilation of prisoners at a secluded location in Petropolis outside Rio known as the `House of Death`.
"We do not rule out any hypothesis. We know that he had testified before the National Commission of Truth (CNV)," the daily O Globo quoted the commissioner in charge of the case, Fabio Salvadoretti as saying.
Salvadoretti said Malhaes had been found lying on the floor with a pillow over his head with marks on his face and neck, suggesting suffocation was the cause of death.
Two computers, jewelry, 700 reais (250 euros) and three military weapons were stolen during the break-in. His widow, Cristina Batista Malhaes, told investigators she and a valet had been locked in separate rooms during the raid.
Lawyers attached to the National Truth Commission meanwhile said today that they believed Malhaes`s death could be part of an attempted cover-up.
"Due to the content of his testimony last month, I am inclined to think that this is an attempt to suppress evidence," commission lawyer Jos? Carlos Dias told the Brazil Post. "I think some of his former colleagues were worried he could say too much."
