TRE Electoral judge revokes arrest of Luanderson Caçula until municipal election day

Judge Carlos Fernando Silva Ramos, of the Regional Electoral Court of Amapá (TRE-AP), granted the request for an injunction and revoked the arrest of Luanderson de Oliveira Alves, Caçula, candidate for councilor of Macapá, until election day 2024, 6 October, or until the final decision on the merits of this action comes, or whichever comes first.

Luanderson’s defense filed a habeas corpus (HC) against the act of the Electoral Court of the 2nd Zone, which ordered his preventive detention. He claimed that his preventive arrest was ordered on September 13, 2024, at the request of the Federal Police (PF), for alleged vote buying and electoral coercion, in addition to the crimes of drug trafficking, money laundering and criminal organization.

Caçula is a candidate for the position of councilor, and claimed that for this reason he was not arrested, as according to electoral legislation he could not be arrested, unless in flagrante delicto with 15 days to go before the election.

He states that he has never had any type of connection with organized crime, much less committed any type of electoral crime, as in the representation of preventive detention none of the crimes attributed to him by the police authority were characterized and which served as the basis for the judge to decree his preventive detention.

According to Luanderson’s defense, the “representation was based on conversations held via messaging application, which was now on the patient’s cell phone, which was the target of another operation, the legality of which is being questioned in the Court of Justice of Amapá, in the report of the summoned judge Marconi Pimenta , as the breach of the chain of custody is questioned, it would soon affect this representation that is now in the Electoral Court”.

THE “enforcement authority, bases the decree of preventive detention of the patient only on the seriousness of the crimes allegedly committed by him, but does not demonstrate why it is necessary to decree such detention”quotes an excerpt from the defense.

In his reasoning, judge Carlos Fernando records that “there is no evidence, in the first analysis, of a lack of justification in the decision that decreed the arrest of Luanderson Caçula, in view of the numerous pieces of evidence and indications mentioned therein, as well as because these are several crimes committed in the context of an alleged criminal organization, a situation that naturally implies a risk to public order, due to the high probability of criminal practices continuing”. The case would therefore be to maintain the prison.

However, the judge wrote, it appears that the petitioner (Luanderson) is right regarding the thesis that he could not be arrested because he was a candidate. The Electoral Code provides in article 236 that candidates enjoy the guarantee of not being arrested, except in flagrante delicto, from 15 days before the election.

The order was issued on September 13, 2024, and there is no information in the file regarding effective compliance with the measure. Taking into account that we are less than 15 days away from the 2024 electoral election, the petitioner is right to request that the arrest order be revoked, even if in a precarious manner”, noted the judge when revoking Luanderson’s arrest. Caçula until election day 2024, October 6, or until the final decision on the merits of this action comes, or whichever comes first.