Brazil ex-leader Kubitschek was not murdered

Former Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek was not murdered by the country's military dictatorship but died in 1976 due to a car crash, AFP reports according to a panel.

The announcement by a national truth commission investigating crimes committed under Brazil's 1964-1985 dictatorship contradicts a report issued late last year that said he had been assassinated.

The newest report, prepared by 20 experts, said there were no shots fired on Kubitschek's vehicle and that its trajectory clearly indicates an accident.

The car crashed with both a bus and a truck during the August 22, 1976 accident on a road near the city of Resende.

A separate truth commission created by the city of Sao Paulo had concluded in December that Kubitschek was assassinated by the military dictatorship.

Kubitschek was in power from 1956 to 1961 and founded the city of Brasilia.

He was an opponent of Brazil's military regime and was stripped of his mandate as senator and of his political rights at the start of the dictatorship.

In 1966, he and former president Joao Goulart, who was toppled by the coup, attempted to organize a front to restore democracy.

Brasilia has opened an investigation into Goulart's death, also in 1976, to determine whether he was assassinated while in exile in Argentina.

According to official estimates, around 400 Brazilians were killed or disappeared during military rule, compared with 3,200 in Chile and 30,000 in Argentina.

The national truth commission was inagurated in May 2012 by President Dilma Rousseff and is tasked with probing politically-motivated abductions in the Cold War era, rights abuses and murders between 1946-1988 -- a time span that exceeds the dictatorship's tenure.