IMPUNITY/BRAZIL
Resolution of the Midyear Meeting
Caracas, Venezuela
March 28 - 30, 2008
WHEREAS
ten years after journalist Manoel Leal de Oliveira was killed on December 14, 1988, in Itabuna, Bahia, the Brazilian government, in response to a request from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, has decided that the case should be reopened in order to identify the masterminds and bring them to justice; the Internal Affairs Division of the Department of Public Security of Bahia has opened a disciplinary administrative proceeding to determine whether police officer Mozart Brasil, who in September 2003 was sentenced to 18 years in prison, should be expelled from the Civil Police for participating in the murder; and the Office of the Public Prosecutor appealed the acquittal of Marcone Sarmento in December 2005, but this appeal is still pending;
WHEREAS
the courts have accepted a criminal complaint and filed charges against former Eunápolis Mayor Paulo Dapé and his officials, Maria José Ferreira Souza (aka Maria Sindoiá), Waldemir Batista de Oliveira (aka Dudu) and Antônio Oliveira Santos (aka Toninho da Caixa), all of whom have been charged in the October 9, 1997, killing of radio journalist Ronaldo Santana de Araújo in Eunápolis, Bahia; the defendants have appealed this decision; their appeal was denied by a lower court and is currently pending in a higher court;
WHEREAS
three people were convicted in the March 2001 murder of radio journalist Jorge Vieira da Costa in Timon, Maranhão; they have appealed their conviction and their appeal is now pending; three defendants charged with masterminding the murder succeeded in having the case dismissed; the prosecution has appealed this decision to the Superior Court, but the case has been assigned to Judge Hamilton Carvalhido since June 2005;
WHEREAS
there is a risk that the investigation into the death of Nivanildo Barbosa Lima, whose body was found in the Paulo Alfonso dam reservoir on July 22, 1995, may be set aside, as new proceedings requested by the prosecution were never carried out; the investigation has been at a standstill since May 2007;
WHEREAS
Reynaldo Polary Stumpf was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the August 16, 2001, murder of journalist Mário Coelho de Almeida Filho in Magé, Rio de Janeiro; the defendants appeal is still pending; former city council member Genivaldo Ferreira Nogueira, who was charged with masterminding the murder, was acquitted on June 30, 2005, due to a lack of evidence; as a result, responsibility for this murder has not yet been determined, and the masterminds have not yet been brought to justice;
WHEREAS
of the six individuals charged in the July 5, 1989, killing of society columnist Maria Nilce Magalhães in Vitória, Espírito Santo, two of them, Marcos Egydio Costa and José Alayr Andreatta, were convicted; but Andreatta filed a successful habeas corpus petition and is free while his case is on appeal; meanwhile, Romualdo Eustáquio de Luz Faria and Charles Roberto Lisboa have pleaded insanity, and the prosecution is awaiting their test results; César Narcizo da Silva was acquitted in December 2006, and the appeals court have not yet ruled on the prosecutions appeal of his acquittal;
WHEREAS
the investigation into the October 29, 1997, killing of Edgar Lopes de Faria (aka Escaramuça) in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, was set aside on January 31, 2006; and the investigation into the April 22, 1991, disappearance of journalist Ivan Rocha in Teixeira de Freitas, Bahia, was also set aside, even though a police chief has told the IAPA that he has information that merits further investigation and there are witnesses to the journalists abduction;
WHEREAS
the mastermind behind the March 10, 1998, killing of radio journalist José Carlos Mesquita in Ouro Preto do Oeste, Rondônia, has not yet been brought to justice, even though one person is being held in the case, and the other defendants either have been killed or are missing; the chief of the Interior Police says that the investigation will be set aside until new evidence comes to light; and witnesses in the case are afraid to speak about the case;
WHEREAS
Genivaldo Galindo da Silva, former mayor of Canindé de São Francisco, was sentenced to 19 years and 10 months in prison for the March 13, 2000, killing of radio journalist José Wellington Fernandes, aka Zezinho Cazuza, in the city of Sergipe; Silvas defense attorney has appealed the verdict, and this appeal is still pending; this is one of the few cases in which the killer has been brought to justice;
WHEREAS
in the case of journalist José Carlos Araújo, killed on April 24, 2004, in Timbaúba, Pernambuco, Helton Jonas Gonçalves de Oliveira was tried, convicted, and sentenced on July 11, 2006, to 16 years in prison for the murder; the other defendants, Marcelo de Melo and Fernando Mariano da Silva Filho, are awaiting trial;
WHEREAS
the police have named eight individuals involved in the June 30, 2003, killing of radio journalist Nicanor Linhares Batista in Limoeiro do Norte, Ceará; in March 2008, the federal assistant prosecutor filed criminal charges against appellate judge José Maria Lucena for masterminding the killing; if the Superior Court accepts the charges, Lucena will go on trial; Judge Hamilton Carvalhido, who prepared the report for the court, voted to dismiss the criminal charges against Arivan Lucena, the former mayor of Limoeiro do Norte charged with conspiring to order the murder, but the other Superior Court judges still must decide whether to go along with Judge Carvalhidos decision; this slow progress in the courts delays punishment of those who are guilty; of the other defendants in the case, two have appealed their conviction and are awaiting the ruling on their appeal; two others will be tried in Fortaleza; and one remains at large;
WHEREAS
Eurico Mariano, the former mayor of Coronel Sapucaia, was sentenced to 17 years and nine months in prison for the April 20, 2004, murder of radio journalist Samuel Román; Mariano has appealed his conviction; this is one of the few cases in which the mastermind has been brought to justice; Cleyton de Andrade Segovia, another defendant in the case, is behind bars and his trial is scheduled for April 29, 2008, in Amambaí, Mato Grosso do Sul; meanwhile, defendant Alfredo Rui Dias Arevalos is missing;
WHEREAS
Aristeu Guida da Silva was killed on May 12, 1995, in São Fidélis, Rio de Janeiro, and Vladimir Rainieri Pereira Sobrosa, charged as one of the perpetrators, was sentenced in April 2002 to 28 years in prison; he appealed his conviction, was granted a new trial, and then received a 21-year sentence, but this second conviction was overturned after his attorney claimed that an essential witness had not been heard; as a result, a new trial must be scheduled; meanwhile, two other defendants, one of whom is a police officer, are still at large;
WHEREAS
business owner Domingos Sávio Brandão de Lima, owner of the newspaper Folha do Estado in Mato Grosso and the radio station Cidade de Cuiabá FM, was murdered on September 30, 2002, and the perpetrators have been convicted and sentenced; the mastermind, João Arcanjo Ribeiro, charged with being an organized crime boss, is behind bars and appealed his indictment, but his appeal was denied; he is now awaiting trial;
WHEREAS
the investigation into the August 29, 1995, killing of journalist Reinaldo Coutinho da Silva in São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro, has been at a virtual standstill since January 2007, when one of the members of the special team assisting prosecutor Rubem Vianna in the investigation in Niterói was taken off the team; this team member had gained the trust of witnesses and made progress in the investigation, and without him none of the witnesses are willing to testify because they are afraid;
WHEREAS
journalist Luiz Carlos Barbon Filho was killed on May 5, 2007, in Porto Ferreira, São Paulo; prosecutors from the special organized crime unit in Campinas (GAERCO) filed charges against five suspects in the case, four of whom are military police officers; all defendants were taken into custody pending trial; and Barbon Filhos widow has been threatened and is urging that the mastermind be found;
WHEREAS
the July 11, 2004, killing of radio journalist Jorge Lourenço dos Santos in Santana do Ipanema, Alagoas, remains unsolved; but now that the strike by members of the Civil Police has ended, and the new state secretary of social affairs in Alagoas is scheduled to assume office in 2008, there are high expectations that the case will be reopened and the culprits brought to justice;
WHEREAS
two former mayors were convicted of masterminding the murders of Samuel Román in Mato Grosso do Sul and radio journalist José Wellington Fernandes in Sergipe, which represents a step forward and a victory for the justice system in the fight against impunity in Brazil;
WHEREAS
defendants who are high-ranking government officials and are therefore eligible under Brazilian law for special treatment by the courts use every legal maneuver they can to have their trials postponed and to hinder the medias ability to cover their cases;
WHEREAS
witnesses are afraid to speak because they do not trust the justice system and there is no effective witness protection system;
WHEREAS
Principle 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec states, 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 request that the federal government assume jurisdiction over crimes against journalists, as provided in the 29th proposed constitutional amendment of 2000 regarding judicial reforms, which the Brazilian Congress passed on December 8, 2004, to protect prosecutors and police officers from pressure as they conduct investigations and locate witnesses;
to request that the new secretary of social affairs in Alagoas ensure that the murder of radio journalist Jorge Lourenço dos Santos in Santana de Ipanema, Alagoas, is thoroughly and properly investigated;
to issue a special request to the governments of the states of Mato Grosso do Sul, Bahia, and Rondônia that they reopen the cases of Edgar Lopes de Faria, Ivan Rocha, and Nivanildo Barbosa Lima, so that the culprits in these cases may be brought to justice;
to request the reinstatement of the person who was taken off the team of experts assisting prosecutors in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, so that the investigation into the case of Reinaldo Coutinho da Silva, and into other unsolved homicides, may be pursued to its conclusion with no outside pressure of any kind;
to request that Superior Court judge Hamilton Carvalhido review, on an urgent basis, the motion from the prosecution that it move forward the case against three defendants charged in the killing of radio journalist Jorge Vieira da Costa in Timón, Maranhão;
to request that Superior Court judges act more quickly in reviewing the case against Arivan Lucena, the former mayor of Limoeiro do Norte who is charged in the killing of Nicanor Linhares Batista;
to ensure that the trial for the killing of Samuel Román, scheduled for April 2008 in Amambaí, Mato Grosso do Sul, proceeds with no undue pressure or irregularities;
to request that the Federal Police, state police departments, governments, and the Office of the Public Prosecutor provide for the safety of journalists whenever they are threatened in the course of their work;
to demand that municipal, state, and federal government agencies provide access to public documents and records of investigations;
to request witness protection programs and protection for family members of victims, so that witnesses and family members may feel encouraged to cooperate with investigations without risking their lives or being forced to endure undue hardships;
to demand that the police and the justice system strive to identify and bring to justice not only the middlemen and gunmen in violent crimes against journalists, but the masterminds behind these crimes as well;
to request that security departments and police forces strive to capture defendants who are at large and bring them to justice.
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