The man was attacked by the military police and arrested, without evidence, charged with robbery; the judge awarded R$ 50,000 in compensation Text: Dindara Ribeiro | Edition: Nataly Simões | Photo: Pexels/Sora Shimazaki
The Public Treasury of the State of São Paulo was ordered to pay R$ 50,000 in compensation for the illegal arrest of a man on the street, attacked by the military police and charged with a crime of robbery (robbery followed by death) which occurred in June 2014 in the municipality of Santa Bárbara d’Oeste, in the hinterland of São Paulo. The decision is still subject to appeal.
According to the sentence handed down in July of this year, the judge Paulo Henrique Stahlberg, of the 2nd Civil Court, recognized the existence of an illicit behavior in the practice of the Public Prosecutors which led to the arrest of Roberto*.
In the appeal, the defendant’s defense argued that he had been the victim of unlawful arrest, torture practiced by the police and media exposure, since at the time of the events he had a photo of his face displayed in newspapers and the media as if he was was the perpetrator of the crime.
In an extract from the decision, the judge stated that the arrest warrant was not presented and that the act was carried out the day after the crime and that no evidence of the crime was found with the defendant. Furthermore, Stahlberg pointed out that the accused, a white man who lived on the street, had different characteristics from those of the real perpetrators, two white teenagers who were later arrested and who confessed to the crime.
Torture as a method of confessing to a crime
According to the sentence, there are elements that demonstrate that the defendant was attacked by prosecutors to confess to the crime. In a statement made to the police headquarters, Roberto reported that he and a friend were taken to a building under construction where they lived, and attacked by the carabinieri with kicks, punches and blows with pieces of wood. The second defendant even confessed to the crime, but an investigation by the Civil Police ascertained that they had no connection with the case.
The police denied the attacks, but the injuries were ascertained through a medical report and the report of a witness, a journalist who was at the police station on the day of the arrest and saw Roberto cleaning the wounds in a bathroom. An investigation by the military police (IPM) was also opened to investigate the torture committed by the security agents, but it was closed due to “lack of elements”.
According to the judge in charge of the case, the police have committed an abuse of power. “Now, once again: if the defendant was stopped by the police without an arrest warrant, then taken to a construction site (a deserted place with no witnesses), and when he arrived at the police station he presented injuries, it is minimally credible that the the defendant’s injuries occurred during the time they were in military custody,” Stahlberg stressed.
Again according to the magistrate, the amount of compensation, equal to 50,000 real, “is reasonable, considering the extent and seriousness of what happened and the suffering experienced by the applicant”.
A black soul asked the Attorney General of the State of São Paulo (PGE), representative of the Ministry of the Treasury in the trial, if it had already been notified of the sentence, the reason for the dismissal of the IPM and the reason why it was argued that the State is not responsible for having exposed the image of the defendant, since the photographs were taken inside a police station in the presence of state agents.
In a note, the PGE reported that it had received notification of the sentence and filed an appeal. “At the moment, the sentence on these embargoes is awaited to analyze the possibility of appealing. The Public Prosecutor’s Office did not answer the other questions.
“Compensations are not yet the rule”
Attorney William Oliveira said other elements were also used to prove the defendant’s innocence, such as footage from a supermarket security camera and an invoice showing that on the day and time of the crime he and his friend were inside a commercial establishment.
For the defence, the decision represents a milestone in the face of cases of torture and police abuse recorded in the country. “Unfortunately this often happens, but people are not always able to fight for this to be recognized and often the judiciary is reluctant to recognize that the police or some police officers act in this way. This decision is a milestone because it stands out in among many others going in the opposite direction,” he said in an interview with the report.
According to the analysis of the lawyer Patrícia Teodósio, a member of the black branch of Pernambuco (Anepe) of the Esperança Garcia collective, reparation by the state for people who are victims of unjust detention is still an exception in the country, especially in the case of black people and/or in situations of vulnerability.
“The detainees, even if at the end of the trial it turns out that they were not responsible for that crime, the law still does not provide compensation. It happened in the case of this citizen because he suffered other forms of violence which added to his imprisonment – was attacked, the image was published -, but what we see is that in everyday life this is very frequent and that unfortunately the law has not yet been sufficient to repress or compensate those who have already experienced it. realize that these allowances are not yet the rule,” he noted.
For the jurist, intersectionalities also interfere in how subjects will be affected by state violence. “Even though this case involves a white man, we have intersections between the inequalities because being homeless definitely contributed to the assumptions that this person was guilty. Also, regardless of the argument whether or not he was guilty, that is what authorizes the police force to attack and treat this body in a dehumanized way”.
*Dummy name used to preserve the identity of the named person.
Source: Terra
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