Judges give up judging suspected land grabbers – 06/24/2023 – Power

More than a dozen magistrates declared themselves suspects in the last year and a half and declined to judge cases related to an agribusiness businessman involved in several land disputes on the border of Bahia and Goiás.

Nestor Hermes, 65, has been the target of lawsuits for more than two decades, accusing him of working with armed officials with the aim of grabbing land in the region.

The reports in the actions are from farmers and other rural entrepreneurs and range from death threats to invasion and burning of properties. The lawsuits also question the validity of the documents he and his companies use to justify obtaining the land.

By Ibama, Hermes and his company have already been fined more than R$1 million for deforestation and illegal sand extraction. He also appeared, in 2012, on the “dirty list” of employers who subjected workers to conditions similar to slavery — the businessman signed an agreement with the Public Ministry of Labor in 2013 and paid compensation to clear his name.

The Bahian region where the land dispute takes place has a history of rural conflicts and was the scene of the largest police operation on the sale of court decisions in Brazil, the Faroeste.

Sought after, Nestor Hermes’ defense claims that he is not convicted in criminal proceedings, that he does not use violence and that there is no evidence of these reports. He showed a certificate that he is not being criminally investigated at the police station in Cocos (BA), where he is part of the proceedings.

He also points out that it is not uncommon for judges to declare themselves suspects and abdicate from judging cases in the west of Bahia, an area that is conflicted and which was the scene of the Faroeste. In a process that is being processed by the TJ-BA with other parties, there were nine declarations of suspicion. In another, seven. In a third, five.

Lawsuits against Hermes that contain reports of alleged violent practices date back to the 1990s.

One of them is a 1997 criminal complaint, in which a rural producer named Severino Silva recorded that Hermes arrived at his property “accompanied by five gunmen, criminals, who, by the way they act, are professional assassins with paramilitary orientation”.

Severino stated that he was taken out of the house under threat of death and that the gunmen then set fire to his residence.

In the complaint, Severino claims to have told Hermes that he had owned the place for more than 30 years, with registration at the Real Estate Registry, Incra and the Federal Revenue. The case led to an investigation by the Public Ministry.

In another lawsuit, from 2012, a businessman named Ademir Sommer stated that he was also prevented from entering his farm, under threat from Hermes, after it had been invaded.

In a lawsuit in 2016, heart of palm producers said that their land had been invaded and that padlocks and locks had been changed. According to them, armed men began to guard the land and prevent the entry of people who claim to be the real owners.

In yet another lawsuit involving different people, from 2020, a rural entrepreneur, Luiz Barros, stated that, on two occasions when he visited his lands, he was received by bikers “heavily armed, with high-caliber carbines”, who said they were command of Hermes and that “no one could stay there under pain of answering with their life”.

Barros’s defense stated that this is “the practice of land grabbers in the region, as they believe in impunity and easy earnings.”

There are more lawsuits with similar claims about the entrepreneur. It is common in some of these cases that the decisions taken by judges take time to be complied with due to the difficulty in subpoenaing Hermes or due to the lack of action by the local government, especially the Military Police.

The action that is in the Court of Justice of Bahia and provoked most of the suspicions involves another company, AMC Agropastoril, which also accuses Hermes of attempted land grabbing. Hermes’ defense denies this and claims that she owns the land.

It was in this process that eight judges and a substitute judge in the second instance declared themselves suspects, by intimate forum, and declined to judge the case.

Sought, the magistrates did not detail the reason for the declaration of suspicion. Judge José Aras said that “these suspicions, by nature, are for reasons of intimate nature”. “That is, there is no specific reason,” he said.

Another judge, Maurício Kertzman, cited the Code of Civil Procedure and stated that “in cases of suspicion for reasons of intimate nature, the judge does not need to state his reasons, precisely to preserve the judge’s freedom to point out this defect, which in fact preserves fair judgment.”

A third judge, Paulo Chenaud, also stated only that he declared himself a suspect on an intimate basis, without giving details.

A Sheet asked the same question, by message or via advisory, to the judges Lisbete Teixeira, Josevando Souza Andrade, Maria de Fátima Carvalho, Regina Helena Silva, Manuel Bahia and the substitute judge in second instance Maria do Rosário Calixto. They didn’t show up.

In the first instance, two judges who acted respectively in the districts of Coribe and Cocos, Bruno Damas and Thatiane Soares, also declared themselves suspects in cases related to Nestor Hermes. Wanted, both did not manifest themselves.

In recent years, Hermes has approached the government of Bahia. A state deputy from the União Brasil, Manuel Rocha, proposed this year the title of citizen of Bahia to Hermes, who was born in Ijuí (RS) and has ties with Formosa (GO).

When contacted, he said that Hermes makes “great investments in the agricultural sector of Bahia, especially in the western region, contributing to the development of the state”.

The mayor of Cocos, Marcelo Emerenciano, who became known for announcing that he would leave the PL to join the PT, has also defended the businessman as a major investor in the region. He took Hermes to a meeting with the governor of Bahia, Jerônimo Rodrigues (PT), in Salvador.

In April of this year, Emerenciano referred to Hermes in an Instagram post as “a friend of all hours” and owner of “one of the largest livestock groups in Brazil”.

When contacted, the mayor claimed to have mediated the meeting with the governor at the request and said that there is, in the city, a group that defends the work of a BR in the municipality.

“We got together for this, which for my municipality is of fundamental importance”, he said.

In 2019, Hermes was also in a meeting with the then Minister of Infrastructure of the Jair Bolsonaro government (PL), the current governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans).

Businessman denies using violence in disputes

Through a defense note, Nestor Hermes claims that he did not use violence in any land dispute and that evidence was never presented against him. Hermes further claims that he has never been criminally convicted.

He also says that Hermes has been “the target of attacks by his adversaries always on the eve of important judgments in his cases”.

“It is a desperate strategy to influence public opinion, since the courts have, most of the time, found the businessman right”, says the note.

“The accusations against Nestor Hermes follow a pattern of narrative, all without proof, which make evident an action orchestrated by his adversaries”, he adds.

The businessman claims that he is appealing against the fines imposed by environmental agencies and that he complied with labor agreements in the judicial sphere.