TRF: Accused of rape during dictatorship must respond to lawsuit – 03/27/2023 – Power

The TRF-2 (Federal Regional Court) determined that retired sergeant Antônio Waneir Pinheiro de Souza respond to criminal action on charges of kidnapping and rape of a political prisoner during the military dictatorship.

The soldier, known as Camarão, was one of the agents of the Army Information Center responsible for guarding the so-called Casa da Morte, a clandestine detention center in Petrópolis.

Camarão was recognized by the only prisoner to leave the place alive, Inês Etienne Romeu, a member of the VPR (Popular Revolutionary Vanguard) tortured and imprisoned for 96 days in 1971.

The February TRF-2 decision overturned the summary acquittal sentence handed down by Judge Alcir Luiz Lopes Coelho, of the 1st Federal Court of Petrópolis, in December 2021.

The magistrate understood that the crimes were covered by the Amnesty Law of 1979, and prescribed due to the time of the crime and the presentation of the accusation (more than 40 years).

The defense of the retired military said it will appeal the decision.

This was the second time that the TRF-2 reversed a decision by Coelho in the case.

In 2017, Coelho had already rejected the complaint from the Federal Public Ministry, offered in 2016, under the same arguments. In the sentence, the magistrate cited, among other authors, the Bolsonarism guru Olavo de Carvalho.

The court ruled in 2019 that the indictment be received. By a majority, the magistrates understood that Brazil should investigate and judge crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship due to the two convictions it suffered in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

After this decision, the magistrate continued the action and decreed summary acquittal, before the production of evidence in court, in December 2021.

When trying to end the criminal action again, the magistrate wrote before the sentence: “Let us know what must be done, not what has been done”, in a quote to Joaquim José Caetano Pereira e Souza, in the book Primeiras Linhas sobre o Processo Civil.

The judges of the TRF-2, however, understood that there was non-compliance with the previous decision due to the use of the same arguments already considered null by the court. The case will be returned to Coelho to proceed with the criminal action.

Inês, who died in 2015, reported in 1979 to the OAB (Order of Lawyers of Brazil) the abuses suffered in the “House of Death”. At least 20 people would have died after being tortured there during the dictatorship.

She was unable to testify to the National Truth Commission (CNV) because of a speech impediment. But her visit to the group’s meetings made it possible to identify six torturers in the house. All recognition was based on photographs presented by the members of the commission.

Inês Etienne received a standing ovation during the CNV session and heard her sister read a letter to the people present in the auditorium of the National Archive.

“Your mission is one of heroism. You have nothing to fear anymore. You have won”, said her sister, Celina Romeu, to Inês after the reading.