A court has sentenced a councilwoman who tied up her ex-husband, assaulted him and doused him in acid to almost 11 years in jail.
A Rio de Janeiro court in Brazil sentenced Veronica Costa to 10 years and eight months, stipulating that her sentence must be served in a closed regime inside a prison.
This was following an appeal lodged by the Public Prosecutor's Office after she was sentenced to five years and 10 months in a semi-open regime at an earlier hearing.
In a semi-open regime, prisoners are allowed to work outside the prison during the day, but they must return to the prison each night.
Costa, of the conservative-liberal Liberal Party, was convicted in 2019 of torturing her then-husband, Marcio Costa, in 2011.
In the latest hearing, the court decided to uphold its initial decision to strip her of her position as councilwoman.
Four of her relatives, who appeared as co-defendants, also had their sentences increased for their roles in the crime and must serve them in a closed regime.
She said in a statement: "I come, in this devastating moment of my life, to share only the truth of the events.
"I was a victim of domestic violence by my ex-husband Marcio, who threatened to kill me with a gun to my head, an event that I reported to the police station."
She added: "Not satisfied with that, he created a false accusation of torture against me, which generated an absurd criminal process full of nullities, so much so that it was already annulled by the Judiciary itself once, but now it has resulted in this unjust conviction against me."
Costa went on: "I have been bleeding this pain since the result of the first trial 10 years ago. I believe in the justice of God, I believe in the justice of man.
"I never did any of what he alleges, nor did my family.
"The accusation alleges that the antenna of my mobile phone was near the incident as if that were enough to establish my guilt."
Her defence says it will appeal the sentence.
Law firm Teixeira e Kulmann said in a statement: "Veronica Costa's defence affirms that her conviction, based on the alleged victim's version without probative basis, will certainly be reversed in new appeals due to its fragility.
"The version accepted by the judiciary at this moment is based on doubts and not certainties, in the word of the victim, who fled the process refusing to present genetic material to confront technical evidence favourable to the defence, a victim who, by the way, threatened Veronica with death before the events."
The crime was discovered in 2011 when Marcio went to a police station in Rio de Janeiro to report his then-wife and her relatives for torture and attempted homicide.
According to his statement to the police, he was tied up, beaten, and doused in a liquid that he believed to be some sort of acid, which caused injuries to his body.
He was able to escape.
Convicted Costa has 375,000 followers on Instagram, where she describes herself as a "defender of women's and children's rights".
