World jiu-jitsu champion shot dead in Brazil

by time news

Brazilian Leandro Lo, eight-time world jiu-jitsu champion, was shot in the head during a concert and will be buried Monday (August 8) in Sao Paulo, authorities said.

The suspected killer, a police officer who attended the concert in civilian clothes on a day off, was taken into custody after voluntarily reporting to a police station on Sunday evening. The murder took place on the night of Saturday to Sunday, at Clube Sirio, a sports club in Sao Paulo. According to Léandro Lo’s family lawyer, an individual approached the table where he was with friends, grabbed a bottle and began to provoke them. The jiu-jitsu champion then tackled him to the ground and immobilized him to “avoid a fight“. The two men were then separated, but the assailant, after moving a few steps away, “suddenly turned around, took a gun and shot Leandro“, told AFP Me Ivã Siqueira Junior. One of the victim’s friends who was present at the scene confirmed to the G1 news site that the champion had been hit by a shot “point-blank to the head».

Léandro Lo, 33, was the holder of eight world titles of the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF), won between 2012 and 2022, in five different weight categories, an absolute record in this discipline. According to the local press, the alleged killer, a 30-year-old policeman, is himself a jiu-jitsu practitioner. “Léandro was one of the greatest in our sport, exemplary on and off the mats“, lamented the IBJJF in a press release. Inspired by judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which developed at the turn of the last century in the South American country, is renowned for its ground fighting techniques often used in mixed martial arts (MMA) competitions.


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