Brazil agrees to compensate family of journalist killed during dictatorship 50 years ago

SAO PAULO — Brazil's government on Thursday signed a landmark agreement accepting responsibility for the killing of Vladimir Herzog, a prominent journalist and political prisoner whom the military dictatorship falsely claimed had killed himself while in custody 50 years ago.

Herzog's family celebrated the official admission of liability, which involved the government agreeing to pay them compensation.

''This apology is not merely symbolic,'' the journalist's son, Ivo Herzog, said from the Vladimir Herzog Institute in Sao Paulo, an organization dedicated to preserving his memory. ''It is an act by the state that makes us believe the current Brazilian state doesn't think like the Brazilian state of that time.''

Under the settlement, the government will pay nearly 3 million Brazilian reais (about $544,800) to the Herzog family as compensation for moral damages. The agreement also includes retroactive payments of a monthly pension to Herzog's widow, Clarice Herzog, from a prior court order.

Along with Rubens Paiva — whose story was portrayed in the 2025 Oscar-winning picture ''I'm Still Here''— Herzog's case became a national symbol of the fight to bring justice to the victims of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. Official estimates put the number of dead and missing during the regime at 434.

Herzog, commonly known by his nickname Vlado, was a Jewish journalist born in 1937 in Osijek, a Yugoslavian city that is now part of Croatia. His family escaped the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941 and settled in Brazil.

Herzog was the news director of a São Paulo television station — the state-run TV Cultura — when, in October 1975, intelligence agents summoned him for questioning on suspicion that he had ties to the outlawed Communist Party. Herzog, who had denied any connection to the Communist Party, walked into the Sao Paulo intelligence headquarters to testify and never came out.

At the time, the Brazilian military claimed he had hanged himself in his cell with a belt. The government released a public photo of his body, which was later proven to have been staged.

Jorge Messias, Brazil's federal legal counselor, praised the agreement Thursday as representative of Brazil's commitment to democracy.

''Today, we are witnessing something unprecedented: The Brazilian state formally honoring the memory of Vladimir Herzog," he said.

Messias said the agreement held particular significance in this moment of tumult for Brazil's democracy.

Military officers accused of plotting a coup to keep former president Jair Bolsonaro in power despite his failure to win re-election in 2022 are standing trial in a historic case before the Supreme Court,

''In the 2022 election, we stood at a crossroads: Either to reaffirm democracy or move toward the closure of the Brazilian state, with all the horrors we lived through for 21 years,'' Messias said.

Ivo Herzog said the settlement closes a painful chapter in his family's decades-long fight for justice.

In 1978, a court ruling issued while Brazil was still under dictatorship ordered an investigation into the circumstances of his father's death.

In 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found Brazil guilty of crimes against humanity for Herzog's killing and prevented the case from expiring under the statute of limitations. The ruling also required the state to acknowledge and formally apologize for the crime but it didn't at the time.

''This has been a struggle not only of the Herzog family, but of all the families of the murdered and disappeared,'' Ivo Herzog said.

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