62nd
General Assembly
Mexico City, Mexico
September 29 to October 3, 2006
Camino Real Hotel
Reports and Resolutions
|
IMPUNITY-BRAZIL
Resolution of the Midyear Meeting
Quito, Ecuador
WHEREAS
Marcone Sarmento, accused of participating in the murder of Manoel Leal de Oliveira
on January 14, 1998, in Itabuna, Bahia, was found not guilty in December 2005,
that the Public Ministry presented an appeal, and the judge still has not pronounced
a sentence, that Mozart Brasil, another person accused of the crime, was sentenced
to 18 years in prison, but presented a habeas corpus and is actually free while
waiting for his sentence; that the mastermind of the crime has still not been
identified and that the Public Ministry considers that the judicial investigation
does not give enough proof to identify this person
WHEREAS
the judge accepted the complaint against the former mayor of Eunápolis,
Paulo Dapé, and his officials Maria José Ferreira Souza (Maria
Sindolá), Waldemir Batista de Oliveira (Dudu) and Antônio Oliveira
Santos (Toninho da Caixa), accused of the murder of radio journalist Ronaldo
Santana de Araújo on October 9, 1997, in Eunápolis, Bahia, which
will be brought to trial on a not yet specified date, given that there have
been several attempts to delay the process; that the other accused party, Paulo
Sérgio Mendes Lima, charged as co-author of the murder, accused Paulo
Dapé of being the intellectual author of the crime
WHEREAS
the legal process in the murder of Nivanildo Barbosa Lima, found dead in the
Paulo Alfonso dam on July 22, 1995, has been reopened and sent to the Public
Ministry, which has asked the police to conduct new investigations
WHEREAS
the principal person accused in the August 16, 2001, murder of Mário
Coelho de Almeida Jr. in Mage, Rio de Janeiro, was the former councilman Genivaldo
Ferreira Nogueira, who was found not guilty June 30, 2005, for lack of evidence;
that the mastermind of the crime has still not been punished: that the other
accused party, Reynaldo Polary Stumpf, who was a fugitive from the law for a
long time, is now in jail and his trial is still in the phase of taking testimony
from defense witnesses
WHEREAS
Marcos Egydio Costa, César Narcizo da Silva, José Alayr Andreatta
and Romualdo Euságuio da Luz Faria, accused of participating in the murder
of social columnist Maria Nilce Magalhaes on July 5, 1989, in Vitória
Espirito Santo, were ready to go to trial, although no date has been set: that
another prisoner, police official Charles Roberto Lisboa, was suspended from
trial because of dementia; that there was a change of prosecutors in charge
of the case
WHEREAS
the case under investigation in the October 29,1997, murder of Edgar Lopes de
Faria (known by the nickname of Escaramuça) in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso
do Sul, was shelved on January 31, 2006, at the petition of the Public Ministry,
after the conclusion that the investigations carried out by André Matsushita
Gonçalves, the police official attached to the Integrated Combat Unit
against Organized Crime (Unicoc)
WHEREAS
the mastermind of the March
10, 1998, murder of radio journalist José Carlos Mesquita in Ouro Preto
do Oesta, Rondônia, has not been identified by name; that there is a person
in jail, and the remaining accused have died---one of them in a conflict with
police; that neither the police nor the Public Ministry has new clues about
the case
WHEREAS
radio journalist José
Wellington Fernandes, known as Zezinho Cazuza, was killed March 13, 2000, in
Canindé de São Francisco, Sergipe, and that the primary person
accused, former mayor Genivaldo Galindo da Silva, is in jail in connection with
other administrative charges; that his trial for Cazuza´s murder will
take place in the city of Propriá (the trial was transferred to another
jurisdiction to avoid pressures), although the date has not yet been set
WHEREAS
in relation to the April 24, 2004, murder of radio journalist José Carlos
Araújo, in Timbaúba, Pernambuco, Fernando Mariano da Silva Jr.,
Marcelo de Melo y Helton Jonas Gonçalves de Oliveira were charged with
murder, but that, of the three, Oliveira is the only one in jail, and the rest
are at large. Oliveira´s trial will be transferred to the capital, Recife,
but as of March 9, 2006, the transfer has not taken place
WHEREAS
the police have identified the eight individuals involved in the June 30, 2003,
murder of radio journalist Nicanor Linhares Batista in Limoeiro do Norte, Ceará,
and that their trial is finishing up its probable cause phase to be presented
later before a judge; that the prosecutor in Limoeiro do Norte, Alexandre Pontes
Aragão, presented an amendment to the accusation against former mayor
Arivan Lucena, accused of being the intellectual author of the crime, and that
the trial is underway; that the process against magistrate José Maria
Lucena, Arivan´s husband, also accused of the crime, is being studied
by Minister Hamilton Carvalhido of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), who
has still not passed a sentence
WHEREAS
the nine individuals who participated in the April 2004 murder of journalist
Samuel Román in Coronel Sapucaia, Mato Grosso do Sul, the only one who
is still in prison is Cleyton de Andrade Segovia, who has requested conditional
liberty (which is still being studied); that former mayor Eurico Mariano, accused
of being the mastermind of the crime, managed to obtain a habeus corpus and
faces trial not in jail; that Alfredo Rui Dias Arevalos was accused by the justice
system, but is still at large; that the rest have not been charged because their
whereabouts are unknown or they have died
WHEREAS
Aristeu Guida da Silva was murdered May 12, 1995, in São Fidélis,
Río de Janeiro, and that Vladimir Rainieri Pereira Sobrosa,accused of
being one of the murderers and sentenced to 28 years of prison in April 2002,
appealed his sentence and is now waiting for a new trial, while the other two
accused parties are still fugitives from the law, one of them being a policeman;
that the process has been in this situation since 2002
WHEREAS
during the investigations of the murder of radio journalist Jorge Vieira da
Costa, killed in March 2001 in Timón, Maranhão, witnesses were
pressured, and the prosecutor in charge of the case identified mistakes in the
initial phases of the trial;
WHEREAS
the three individuals sentenced for commiting the crime appealed the sentence,
and that the appeal process is still being heard in court ; that the three persons
accused of being intellectual authors of the crime managed to obstruct justice;
that the Public Ministry appealed the sentence to the Superior Court of Justice,
but that the appeal has not yet been seen by the court
WHEREAS
businessman Domingos Sávio Brandão de Lima, owner of the newspaper
Folha do Estado do Mato Grosso and Rádio Cidade de Cuiabá FM,
was killed September 30, 2002, and that the authors of the crime were sentenced,
with the intellectual author, João Arcanjo Ribeiro, accused of leading
an organized crime ring, prisoner in Uruguay and waiting extradiction to Brazil
to be put on trial; that the former military police soldier Célio Alves
de Souza, sentenced to 17 years and six months in prison in June 2005 for his
participation in the businessman´s murder, escaped from the Pascoal Ramos
Prison on July 24, 2005, and is still at large
WHEREAS
the investigation of the case of the August 29, 1995, murder of journalist Reinaldo
Coutinho da Silva, in São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro, was virtually
paralyzed for a long time until prosecutor Rubem Vianna proposed following another
clue, but since 2003, he had not obtained a reply to a request for information
and the prosecutor in the case has been changed
WHEREAS
the investigation of the murder of radio journalist Jorge Lourenço dos
Santos, killed July 11, 2004, in Santana do Ipanema, Alagoas, was sent by the
Public Ministry, together with a request for further investigation, to the regional
delegation in 2005, but that, with the change of the head of the delegation,
the above-mentioned investigation has not been found, and the police chief has
no knowledge of such a request
WHEREAS
in the majority of the cases investigated of murders of journalists and radio
reporters, occurring in the exercise of their profession, the police have only
managed to identify and arrest the material authors and intermediaries, but
not the masterminds of the crimes
WHEREAS
the constant turnover of prosecutors and delegates of circuit courts and police
stations makes the development of investigations difficult
WHEREAS
that the lack of judges in certain circuit courts such as that of Goiás,
with the resulting accumulation of work, fosters impunity
WHEREAS
the threats and pressures against the witnesses of crimes committed against
journalists and radio reporters are very great and that an efficient system
of protection, witnesses refuse to provide information or are forced to leave
their cities
WHEREAS
there are significant flaws in the registry system of prisoners and fugitives,
as well as in communication between the prisons and the judicial branch and
the very police
WHEREAS
reporters in São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Brasília have faced serious
problems in obtaining access to public documents from the Security Secretariat,
the police and the judicial branch
WHEREAS
cases of aggression have been registered against reporters, photographers and
filmmakers in the cities of Pará, Santa Catarina, Tocantins, Piauí,
Rio Grande do Sul, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Rondônia,
Mato Grosso do Sul, Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Goiás
WHEREAS
the proximity of land borders and delays in carrying out investigations and
trials can facilitate criminal flight and the coverup of conclusive proof
WHEREAS
the National Congress enacted on December 8, 2004, a Proposal for a Constitutional
Amendment No. 29 of 2000, for the reform of the judicial branch, with articles
already in force concerning the jurisdiction of the federal court in the case
of crimes against human rights; that as the majority of the cases of journalists
and radio hosts murdered in Brazil, the crimes have been linked to politicians,
police, or influential people in their cities—which impedes a rapid ,
fair and effective investigation of the intellectual authors and others involved
in the crimes—it would be important that the investigations be carried
out on the federal level
WHEREAS
article 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec establishes that “Freedom
of expression and of the press are severely limited by murder, terrorism, kidnapping,
intimidation, the unjust imprisonment of journalists, the destruction of facilities,
violence of any kind and impunity for perpetrators. Such acts must be investigated
promptly and punished harshly.”
THE MIDYEAR MEETING OF THE
IAPA RESOLVES
to ask the Brazilian Government
that investigation of crimes against journalists and radio reporters be transferred
to the jurisdiction of the Federal Police, since the murders are generally in
retaliation for accusations made by media professionals in their cities and
therefore investigations can be subject to local pressures and interference
to ask for the enlargement and improvement of the witness protection program,
since witnesses in this program at the present time are subject to survival
conditions, which makes many of them prefer not to be included in the program
to ask the authorities to
effectively guarantee the right to freedom of expression and of access to public
documents, trials and investigations
to ask the state Secretaries
of Public Security to provide the technical conditions and necessary infrastructure
to effectively investigate crimes, including payment of travel expenses for
those looking for suspects, agility in laboratory services for ballistics, DNA
and fingerprints, mobility to conduct basic investigations, and fast tracking
of search and prison warrants
to demand that the police
and the judicial branch provide investigations that are not limited to the identification
and jailing of gunmen and intermediaries, but that also include those who mastermind
the crimes
to ask the state Secretaries
of Public Security to adopt the necessary measures to prevent the flight of
people involved in these crimes
to ask that the necessary
steps be taken to keep bureaucracy and corruption from delaying court procedures
in the judicial Branco, and thus to avoid delays in the trials of the accused
parties
to guarantee that accused
parties who presently hold political posts can also be brought to trial, even
if they belong to the higher sphere of the judicial branch, preventing them
from having the possibility to delay investigations in the proceedings in which
they are involved
to ask the members of the
Public Ministries of the various states to make a strong effort to follow up
these proceedings and to demand new inquiries to identify guilty parties and
to guarantee that trails are not interrupted every time a prosecutor or a police
chief is rotated.
 questions
or comments? e-mail us
Copyright © 2003 Inter American Press Association.
All rights reserved.
. |
