Court condemns indigenous man for moral damage to former president of Funai

Judge Felipe Vidigal de Andrade Serra, of the 9th Civil Court of Brasília, sentenced the indigenist and lawyer, Ricardo Henrique Rao, to compensate the former president of the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai), Marcelo Xavier, in R$ 15 thousand reais for moral damages.

The lawyer, who is also a former Funai employee, was sued after using social media to accuse, without evidence, the former president of the Foundation of involvement in the deaths of indigenous man Bruno Pereira and English journalist Dom Phillips.

Initially, Xavier had asked for compensation worth R$50,000 and a retraction on social media. In the decision, the judge recognized that there was a crime in the defendant’s conduct, but reduced the amount of compensation and did not meet the demand for retraction so as not to “rekindle the offensive debate”.

“The offenses perpetrated by the defendant against the author have a clear illicit and discrediting nature, especially when considering that there is no proof of such conclusions, such as a final and unappealable conviction”, says an excerpt from the decision published on October 4, 2023 .

The judge also denied a request from the former president of Funai that Ricardo Rao be prevented from mentioning his name in interviews or on social media. According to the judge, such a ban “would annihilate social control and weaken the democratic regime”.

Furthermore, according to the decision, the social networks used by Ricardo Rao to spread the false accusations against Marcelo Xavier no longer exist. Furthermore, Ricardo left the country in 2019 for supposed exile in Norway.

In May of this year, when giving an interview to the website Opera Mundi, Ricardo said that he chose Norway to be able to work in the villages of the Sami Indians, an ethnic group that lives in the Arctic Circle of Europe.

In 2022, when faced with Marcelo Xavier, then president of Funai, at the General Assembly of the Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (Filac), in Spain, Ricardo Rao created a scandal and shouted, calling Xavier “militiaman” and again accused him of being responsible for the deaths of Bruno and Phillips.

Wanted by People’s GazetteMarcelo Xavier complained about the attitude of part of the press which, at the time of the events, reproduced Ricardo’s accusations and also promised to take the newspapers to court after the victory against the former Funai employee.

“The recomposition of moral damages by the Judiciary, with the conviction of the offender, even if late, brings to public opinion the satisfaction that one should not extrapolate or abuse on social networks. The stance of the one who declares himself a defender of human rights is regrettable , but uses social media to spread hate speech and attacks, as recognized by the ruling. At the time of the events, many media outlets, in a completely partial way, ended up contributing to the spread of lies, however, they ignored the current conviction by the Judiciary. All will be prosecuted and part of the resources obtained from the convictions will be donated to entities that promote sustainable ethnodevelopment in indigenous areas”, said Xavier.