Agent of Brazilian dictatorship receives unprecedented criminal sentence

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (EFE) A judge in the Brazilian state of São Paulo handed down an unprecedented sentence to an agent accused of crimes during the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985, the first sanction of its kind in criminal law, the federal prosecutor’s office announced Monday.

It is the first criminal conviction in Brazil’s history against a former agent of the dictatorship for his involvement in the repression of opposition figures, and the disappearance of a political activist, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The sentence of two years and 11 months in prison, initially in a semi-open regime, was imposed on retired police commissioner Carlos Alberto Augusto by the 9th Criminal Court of Sao Paulo, which held him responsible for the disappearance of a political activist in 1971.

The imposition of the sentence after 50 years was only possible because the court accepted the prosecution’s argument that the 1979 Amnesty Law does not cover those responsible for ordinary crimes. Some of these crimes, such as disappearances or kidnappings, are not subject to the statute of limitations because they are deemed crimes against humanity.

The amnesty law was sanctioned in 1979 by General Joao Baptista Figueiredo, the last ruler of the military dictatorship, to allow the return to the country of opposition figures who had gone into exile after being accused of political crimes. Likewise, amnesty was also granted to agents of government organs accused of various crimes, including torture, kidnapping, and murder.

Augusto, who is allowed to remain at large while a lower court considers appeals against his sentence, was convicted for his role in the disappearance of former Marine Edgar de Aquino Duarte.

CONVICTION FOR DISAPPEARANCE OF POLITICAL ACTIVIST

The conviction came from a complaint filed by prosecutors against three of the defendants in the disappearance of Aquino Duarte, but the case against the other two defendants was dropped after their deaths.

One of the defendants was Army Reserve Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, accused of several crimes during the military regime and praised several times by Brazil’s current president, far-right Jair Bolsonaro.

“This is one of the few cases related to crimes committed during the dictatorship that is moving forward in the court system. Most of the more than 50 lawsuits filed by the prosecution in recent years have been dismissed or are paralyzed in courts across the country, in violation of the rules and decisions that oblige Brazil to investigate and punish those accused of killing political militants between 1964 and 1985,” the prosecution said.

The judge in charge of the sentencing said in his ruling that the defendant’s responsibility was proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” thanks to documents from the Public Archive of the State of Sao Paulo and various testimonies.

“There is more than enough evidence that the defendant participated in the detention of the victim and that he was active in at least one of the places where he was illegally detained,” Judge Silvio César Arouck Gemaque said in his ruling.

The judge added that it is not permissible, even in an exceptional regime like the one that existed at the time, for the state’s repressive forces to be authorized to carry out acts outside the law.

He added that the activist was subjected to violence, torture, and degrading treatment in secret prisons for two years before his disappearance.

“What is expected of state forces is the legitimate exercise of the right to use force and not the commission of crimes,” the ruling said, attributing the crime to the “system of terror” established to “arrest, kidnap, torture, disappear and kill people without warrants because of their political positions.”