Marcelo Santoro to stand trial in Brazil over Cecilia Haddad murder in Sydney

Marcelo Santoro is being held in a maximum security cell in Brazil after a judge ruled there was enough evidence to send him to trial for the murder of his ex-lover Cecilia Haddad in Sydney.

Accused murderer Marcelo Santoro will stand trial in Rio over the death of his ex-lover Cecilia Haddad, after a Brazilian judge today ruled there was sufficient evidence to push forward with femicide charges.

Santoro will face a jury trial and up to 30 years in jail if found guilty of murdering Ms Haddad in April last year and dumping her body in Sydney’s Lane Cove River.

Although Santoro left Australia shortly after Ms Haddad’s murder, in what police allege was an attempt to avoid extradition proceedings, authorities in Rio are prosecuting him for the overseas murder of a fellow Brazilian citizen.

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Marcelo Santoro is accused of murdering his ex-lover Cecilia Haddad. Picture: Supplied

They have been supported with a dossier of evidence from NSW Police, including CCTV footage that allegedly showed him ditching his clothes and behaving strangely in the hours after her death.

Judge Raphaela de Almeida Silva from the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice said she accepted that there was sufficient evidence for a trial.

This would take place at an undetermined date before a jury of seven, who will be asked to reach a majority verdict.

Cecilia Haddad was aged only 38 at the time of her death. Picture: Facebook

“The accused, free and conscious, caused physical injuries in Cecilia Muller Haddad, his former girlfriend, which were the cause of her death, according to the autopsy report,” Judge Silva quoted Rio’s district attorney saying in a judgment lodged on Monday, local time.

“The cause of death was strangulation. The crime was committed against the woman for reasons of female sex, because the accused did not accept the end of the relationship.”

Judge Silva also dismissed a recent defence attempt to argue Santoro was not of sound mind when he allegedly killed Ms Haddad.

CCTV of Marcelo Santoro allegedly showed him ditching his clothes and behaving strangely in the hours after her death. Courtesy of Nine News.

Santoro’s lawyer had argued earlier this month that the former engineer threatened suicide over the end of his relationship with Ms Haddad, however Judge Silva said there was nothing indicating his insanity.

She also remanded him in maximum security custody pending trial.

“The kinds of crimes practised are sufficient indications that the defendant cannot be credited with the typical trust to … permit serving time under a softer regime,” she said.

In a pre-trial hearing last year, Rio police said Santoro confessed to killing Ms Haddad, 38, after subjecting her to “a campaign of psychological terror” because he felt “unwanted”.

They also said he went on to taunt her family with texts pretending to be her.

Santoro will face a jury trial and up to 30 years in jail if found guilty of murder. Picture: News Corp Australia

Ms Haddad’s family gave emotional testimony describing a dedicated daughter and sister who built a career as a mining executive in Rio, Perth and Sydney.

Her father Jose Ibrahim Haddad described their last conversation to the court, when she asked him to stay on the line as she got home late on the night of April 27, shortly before she is believed to have died.

“She didn’t tell me everything that was happening, to protect me. But that night she called me because she was scared. I stayed on the line as she arrived home, then she called Marcelo’s name three times to see if he was there. At the end she said, it’s all right, he isn’t here. It was the last time I spoke with her,” he said.