June 10, 2022

11:06

Gabriel Abreu – Amazon Agency

BOA VISTA (RR) – The judge of the 1st Criminal Court of Boa Vista, Cláudio Roberto de Araújo, received on Wednesday, 8, the denunciation of the Public Ministry of Roraima (MPRR) against those accused of having committed the kidnapping and torture of journalist Romano dos Anjos, in October 2020.

Among the defendants is the former president of the Legislative Assembly of Roraima (ALERR) and former state deputy Jalser Renier Padilha, who lost his mandate for breach of parliamentary decorum, and is suspected of ordering the kidnapping and torture of the journalist, and military police officers.

In accepting the complaint, Judge Cláudio Araújo considered that “the facts described in the complaint are extremely serious” and dismissed the request for the defendants to be released from prison. Thus, the preventive detention of the defendants was maintained by the magistrate. The defendants are charged with seven crimes: aggravated housebreaking, private prison, aggravated robbery, aggravated damage, formation of a private militia, torture/aggravated punishment, and aggravated kidnapping.

“The fact that the defendants have been segregated for about 8 months, by itself, does not demonstrate excessive delay in criminal prosecution, because the requirement of time lapse of preventive detention should be analyzed in a broad way, covering all the peculiarities of the concrete case,” argued the magistrate in an excerpt from the decision.

Defendants

Among the defendants are: Clovis Romero Magalhaes Souza – sub-lieutenant PM, Gregory Thomaz Brashe Júnior – sergeant PM, Luciano Benedito Valerio – former server Ale-RR, Nadson José Carvalho Nunes – sub-lieutenant PM, Paulo Cesar de Lima Gomes – retired PM colonel, Thiago de Oliveira Cavalcante Teles – soldier PM, Vilson Carlos Pereira Araújo – major PM, Natanael Felipe de Oliveira Junior and Moises Granjeiro de Carvalho.

Arrest of Military Policemen

Gaeco and the Secretariat of Public Security (Sesp) of Boa Vista, Roraima, launched in September, Operation Pulitzer, which arrested four of the six military police officers who were involved in the kidnapping of journalist Romano dos Anjos.

According to information released by the portal Poder, most of those investigated worked for the state lawmaker Jalser Renier, who presided over ALERR at the time. During the action, seven arrest warrants were served, six against military police officers and another against a former employee of the Legislative House. In addition, 14 search and seizure warrants were also served in the operation.

The Case

The presenter Romano dos Anjos was kidnapped on the night of October 26, 2020 and found on the morning of October 27 with his arms broken and tied up. The suspects broke into the presenter’s home and approached the journalist and his wife, Nattacha Vasconcelos, who was also a presenter. He was found alive in a wooded area of Boa Vista after a man contacted the radio station where he worked.