STJ increases sentence for police officers involved in Amarildo’s death and disappearance

The 6th Panel of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) decided, this Tuesday (22), unanimously, to increase the sentence of military police convicted of the death and disappearance of bricklayer Amarildo Dias de Souza, in Rio de Janeiro.

Amarildo disappeared in 2013 after being taken by military police to the Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) in the Rocinha favela. Amarildo’s body has still not been found.

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Thirteen police officers were convicted of the case in 2016, for the crimes of torture followed by death, concealment of a corpse and procedural fraud.

At the STJ, the ministers analyzed appeals from the Public Prosecution Service of Rio de Janeiro (MP-RJ), asking for an increase in penalties, and the defenses of the police, for the annulment of the conviction.

The rapporteur, Minister Rogerio Schietti Cruz, rejected the appeals of the defendants’ defenses and accepted, in part, the MP-RJ’s request. He was accompanied by the other four members of the gang.

The new penalties are as follows:

• Major Edson Raimundo dos Santos, then commander of UPP Rocinha: 16 years, 3 months and 6 days in prison and 17 days fine;
• Lieutenant Luiz Felipe de Medeiros, then Commander of UPP Rocinha: 12 years, 8 months and 3 days imprisonment and 14 days fine;
• Soldier Douglas Roberto Vital Machado: 13 years and 8 months and fine days and 14 fine days;
• Soldiers Anderson Cesar Soares Maia, Wellington Tavares da Silva, Marlon Campos Reis, Jorge Luiz Gonçalves Coelho and Felipe Maia Queiroz Moura: 9 years, 5 months and 15 days imprisonment and 14 days fine.

According to the rapporteur, the penalties needed to be reviewed because previous decisions did not take into account points such as the fact that Amarildo’s body has not yet been located.

“Such circumstances denote greater severity of the criminal conduct, but were not considered to increase the base penalties”, he said. “The absence of recovery of the body authorizes the increase of the sanction. The fact that the victim’s body, 10 years after the crime, has still not been found, in order to prevent her relatives from burying it, is the most serious circumstance of the crime”.

The police officers’ defenses argued in the session that there were irregularities during the process in the Justice of Rio de Janeiro. They also stated that the conviction was given only on the basis of a witness statement and that there is a lack of evidence to attest to the conduct of the agents.