Brazilian police said they arrested a German diplomat on Saturday for allegedly killing her husband at their home in an upscale Rio de Janeiro community and then tried to escalate the crime.
Uwe Herbert Hahn, a German consul, told the government that her husband, Belgian citizen Walter Henri Maximilien Biot, fell Friday night, collapsed and fatally hit his head, police said.
However, the investigation of the couple’s frame and apartment in the beach district of Ipanema revealed that Biot had been severely beaten, they said.
“The edition of occasions given by the consul, in which the victim fell, is incompatible with the conclusions of the forensic report,” officer Camila Lourenco said in comments posted on social media through Rio de Janeiro’s police station 14.
“He discovered bruises, also on the torso, consistent with injuries inflicted by kicks, as well as injuries consistent with an attack with a cylindrical instrument,” he added.
“The corpse screams the cases of his death. “
The police station’s Instagram account posted images of what appeared to be blood stains on the floor and furniture of the couple’s apartment.
Brazilian media said Hahn would not enjoy diplomatic immunity given the nature of the crime. Police did not respond to a request for comment.
Local media reported that Hahn, who had been married to Biot for 20 years, tried to hide the scene of the death before police arrived and then told police that her husband had taken sleeping pills.
Biot a week before his 53rd birthday, according to a photo of his identity document published in the Brazilian press.
The German embassy did not respond to a request for information.
But the embassy and consulate in Rio de Janeiro are in “close contact with the Brazilian government investigating the case,” an official at Germany’s Federal Foreign Ministry said Sunday.