A human rights group reported that civil and military...

A human rights group reported that civil and military police in Latin America's most populous nation had participated in 2,500 killings since 1997, a figure that some activists and federal law enforcement officials considered a conservative estimate. In Acre, one of the most violent states in Brazil, federal officials estimated that police had killed 500 people since 1997. In the state of Goias, in a cluster of poor towns around the nation's capital, Brasilia, authorities believed police had executed more than 100 people during the same period. In the north-east state of Bahia, police were said to have killed some 160 residents since 1997. And those figures are just from three of Brazil's 26 states. Since August 1999, some 50 police officers had been arrested in connection with slayings in their states. In the most notorious case, 42 Acre police officers were accused of participating in an extensive and vicious organised crime ring that operated out of Rio Branco, the state capital. The ring's leader was allegedly Hildebrando Pascoal, a national congressman and military police colonel, who was arrested in September 1999. Pascoal denied any wrongdoing.