Categories: Politics

RJ: STJ minister denies appeal and keeps former councilor Cristiano Girão in jail

RJ: STJ minister denies appeal and keeps former councilor Cristiano Girão in jail

The Minister of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), Joel Ilan Paciornik, denied, this Wednesday (23), an appeal filed by the defense of former Rio de Janeiro councilor, Cristiano Girão, requesting that the former parliamentarian answer his free process. Girão was arrested on July 30 of last year.

According to the Civil Police, investigations pointed to the former councilor as the mastermind behind the murder of former police officer André Henrique da Silva Souza, known as Zóio, in 2014.

In the decision, the minister understood that the “pre-trial detention was properly motivated, having been demonstrated by the ordinary instances, based on elements extracted from the file, the concrete gravity of the conduct and the dangerousness of the accused”.

Still in his decision, Paciornik highlighted that the “procedural arrest is duly based on the guarantee of public order, in view of the modus operandi of the conduct and the concrete possibility of criminal reiteration”, stating that its revocation has no legal justification.

According to Girão’s lawyer, Zoser Hardman, the Judiciary’s opinion was selective. He informed that he has already filed an appeal and will try to reverse the decision in the Collegiate of the Fifth Class. “The decision rendered by the Minister Rapporteur violates the jurisprudence of the Superior Court of Justice, in addition to contradicting recent precedents of the Minister Rapporteur himself, which generates some perplexity”, said Hardman to the CNN.

Investigations showed that the crime was carried out by retired military police officer Ronnie Lessa, accused of the death of former councilor Marielle Franco (PSOL) and Anderson Gomes, in 2018. Lessa is already in prison as a result of Marielle’s murder. Girão is one of those investigated in the investigation that investigates those responsible for the death of the parliamentarian. The defense denies the client’s involvement in the crime.

Elected councilor in 2008, with 10,445 votes, Cristiano Girão was denounced by the CPI das Milícias, of the Legislative Assembly of Rio, for leading a criminal group in Gardênia Azul, a neighborhood in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, dominated by the militia. The former parliamentarian was imprisoned between 2009 and 2015.

Source: CNN Brasil