A Brazilian soccer player who was jailed in connection with his girlfriend’s murder is heading back onto the soccer field.
Bruno Fernandes de Souza, or Bruno, a well known Brazilian goalkeeper, signed a two-year contract with the soccer club Boa Esporte recently after he was released from prison, the Metro reports.
Fernandes served seven years in prison in connection with the murder of his girlfriend Eliza Samudio in 2010, the report states. He was released from prison on Feb. 24, according to the report.
Married with children, Bruno reportedly had an affair with the 25-year-old Samudio and got her pregnant. According to previous reports, Bruno pressured Samudio to abort their unborn son, but she refused.
Eliza’s friend Milena Baroni, a 25-year-old law student from Rio, told The Daily Beast in 2010, “He wanted her to get rid of the baby, abort it. She didn’t want to. She was against abortion.”
She said Eliza told her that Bruno “kidnapped her and tried to force her to abort. Including he put a gun in her face. She went to the police about this.” Baroni added: “In my opinion, something has happened to her, I wish it wasn’t so.”
Police said Bruno arranged to have Samudio abducted and murdered. He allegedly paid former military policeman Luiz Santos £8,000 (about $10,000) to murder her, according to the Metro. Police said Bruno watched as Samudio was brutally murdered, and then allegedly helped Santos chop up her body and feed it to dogs. Police said they never found her body.
According to the report, Bruno denied arranging and paying for her murder, but he admitted in 2013 to knowing that she was murdered and her body fed to dogs.
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His acceptance into Boa Esporte is causing an “uproar” in Brazil, and at least one sponsor canceled its support of the club, the report states.
Violence against pregnant women and their unborn babies is common – even without counting abortion. In the United States, one in six women is first abused during pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Sometimes the abuse occurs after the woman refuses her partner’s demands to have an abortion. In a case in Pennsylvania, a man allegedly beat and choked his pregnant girlfriend after she refused to have an abortion in October 2015. LifeNews reported another case in September 2016 where police arrested a Tennessee man after his pregnant girlfriend accused him of kicking and hitting her when she told him that she would not abort their baby.
Several studies also have linked domestic violence to abortion. In these cases, some women were forced or pressured by partners into having abortions, while others believed having an abortion would help them escape abuse.
