Former delegate is convicted of hiding corpses in the dictatorship – 06/12/2023 – Politics

The Federal Justice in Campos dos Goytacazes (RJ) sentenced the former delegate of the Dops (Department of Political and Social Order) of Espírito Santo Cláudio Antônio Guerra to seven years in prison in a semi-open regime, in addition to a fine of R$ 10 thousand, for crime of hiding corpses during the dictatorship.

The decision is due on Thursday (8), and Guerra will be able to appeal freely.

In 2014, the former delegate told the CNV (National Truth Commission) that he had collected the bodies of 12 political activists. The corpses were removed from torture centers, such as the Casa da Morte, in Petrópolis (RJ), and from the DOI-Codi (Information Operations Detachment – Internal Defense Operations Center), and incinerated in ovens at a sugarcane mill. sugar mill in Campos dos Goytacazes, 380 km from Rio de Janeiro.

The report was unable to contact Guerra. In an interview with Sheet in 2019, he stated that he did “some things that didn’t go well”.

“I saw when they call me a murderer. They distill hatred and, as long as it is like that, the objective is to have a new society in which mistakes that were committed are forgiven… There were fatal victims on both sides”, he said at the time.

The decision by federal judge Maria Isadora Tiveron Frizão, holder of the 2nd Federal Court of Justice in Campos dos Goytacazes, came after a complaint filed by the Federal Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro in 2019.

The crimes associated with the War were based on his own accounts in the autobiographical book “Memoirs of a Dirty War” (2012) and on testimonies to the National Truth Commission in 2014. He was also the subject of a 2017 documentary.

Guilherme Garcia Virgílio, responsible for the complaint presented to the Federal Court, celebrated the sentence.

“The defendant’s behavior deviated from legality, moving away from principles that should guide the exercise of public function by any agent of the State, especially those in the exercise of positions in public security forces, which imposes the duty to protect rights and guarantees constitutional rights of the population.”

The judge accepted the arguments presented by the Attorney General’s Office that the current amnesty laws would be inapplicable to Guerra’s case. According to her, because the concealment of corpses are unsolved crimes, of a permanent nature and which, therefore, extended beyond the period delimited by the amnesty —between 1961 and 1979.

The 12 militants are on the list of 136 people considered missing in the CNV’s final report.

“In reality, Cláudio Guerra, as an agent of the State itself, planned, organized, conducted and carried out the criminal actions, including co-opting third parties to carry out his strategy, which denotes, therefore, that he integrated higher levels within the scope of the organization, to attract highest degree of accountability”, wrote the magistrate in the decision.

The Federal Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro stated that the conviction “is a step forward in the search for the truth and for the accountability of those involved in the crimes committed during the military dictatorship in Brazil”.

“The MPF reaffirms its commitment to investigate and denounce cases of human rights violations that occurred during this dark period in the country’s history. Brazilian society has the right to know the truth about what happened during the military dictatorship and to see those responsible for the crimes committed at the time being punished.”

Cláudio Guerra has already received two other convictions from Justice. In the first, the former delegate was accused of committing an attack against a bicheiro. Afterwards, he was convicted of the death of his wife and sister-in-law, in 1980. They were found dead in a dump with 19 and 11 shots, respectively.

Guerra denies responsibility for the two crimes for which he was previously arrested.