The Civil Police of Pará detained today (13), on a preventive basis, river foreman Marcos de Souza Oliveira, captain of the boat Dona Lourdes II, which sank on Thursday (8), in Belém, with an unknown number of passengers. on board.
The arrest was made public by the governor of Pará, Helder Barbalho, who used his personal Twitter account to inform that, five days after the tragedy, the seafarer was detained in Ananindeua “thanks to the integrated work of the state security forces”.
In an interview with Agência Brasil, Oliveira’s lawyer, Dorivaldo Belém, confirmed the arrest. According to him, the foreman was arrested when he was about to turn himself in to the police authorities, “as previously agreed”.
“We had already informed the judge and the delegate that he would appear today. It was agreed that he would do this this morning at 10 am. He came from the countryside and was at a residence, about to perform, but he felt bad and asked for the deadline to be extended until the afternoon, at the latest for tomorrow (14). The police saw fit to do this [detê-lo] and take him to the general police station, where he will testify”, informed the lawyer.
Yesterday (11), the lawyer told Agência Brasil that the foreman classifies the tragedy as an “accident caused by the force of nature”. According to Dorivaldo Belém, Oliveira said that, after the shipwreck, he left the place where the survivors were gathering for fear of being attacked, and he did not appear before the police station because he was emotionally shaken.
Also according to the lawyer, the boatswain said he heard a loud noise at the bottom of the boat shortly before it lost its control system, drifted and started to sink. Oliveira also said that there were 82 life jackets on board the Dona Lourdes II, in addition to four support buoys that, together, would serve to save another 60 people on board.
According to maritime authorities, the speedboat had a capacity for 82 people, including crew. So far, the Pará Public Security Department (Segup) works with the hypothesis that at least 89 people were on board at the time of the accident. The deaths of 22 people and the rescue of 66 survivors have already been confirmed. Search teams continue to look for at least one missing person who, according to relatives, was on the speedboat.
According to the boat’s commander’s lawyer, Oliveira denies that the vessel was carrying more people than its capacity, but acknowledges that he was not authorized to operate on the route between Cachoeira do Arari, in the Marajó archipelago, and Belém, close to where the vessel sank.
“The vessel is duly registered with the Port Authority and, therefore, was authorized to carry out this type of transport [de passageiros]but with an irregular detail, she was not authorized to operate on the route where the accident occurred”, declared the lawyer to Agência Brasil, admitting that the client had already been operating on the stretch for about 6 months, while, according to him, he was waiting the definitive answer to the process in which he requested authorization to work.
According to the Pará Public Services Regulation and Control Agency (Arcon), Oliveira started using the Dona Lourdes II after having two other vessels (Clícia and Expresso) seized for being used for the irregular transport of passengers.
Source: CNN Brasil
