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Freedom of Expression

Brazil

Assassinations

 

22.        On June 2, 2002, investigative reporter Tim Lopes, of TV Globo, disappeared and was later found murdered.  According to news reports, he was last seen on assignment in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, in an impoverished community, known as a favela.  On June 12, police found badly decomposed human remains, along with Lopes' camera and watch, in an clandestine cemetery in Favela da Grota.  After DNA tests, the police confirmed on July 5 that the remains belonged to Lopes.

 

23.        On above-mentioned date, Lopes had traveled to Favela Vila do Cruzeiro.  This was Lopes's fourth visit to Vilado Cruzeiro, and this time, he was a carrying a hidden camera.  According to TV Globo, Lopes was working on a report about parties that were hosted by drug traffickers in Vila do Cruzeiro and that allegedly involved drugs and the sexual exploitation of minors.  Reporter Cristina Guimarães, who co-produced the report with Lopes and two other colleagues, received death threats in September 2001 and had to leave the state of Rio de Janeiro, according to O Estado of Sao Paulo.  The daily Jornal do Brasil reported that Lopes, had also received threats as a result of the report. [i]

 

24.        On September 19, 2002, Brazilian police captured a local drug trafficker who was the leading suspect in the disappearance and murder of Tim Lopes.  Elias Pereira da Silva, also known as Elias the Madman, was apprehended in one of Rio de Janeiro's favelas.  According to the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police, two suspects, both members of the gang headed by Pereira da Silva, were arrested on the morning of June 9.  Both men claimed that they heard how Lopes was murdered but denied any involvement in his killing.  According to the suspects' depositions, after Lopes told them he was a TV Globo reporter, the traffickers called Pereira da Silva, who was in a nearby favela.  They tied Lopes' hands, forced him into a car, and took him to the favela where Pereira da Silva was staying.  There, they beat the reporter and shot him in the feet to keep him from escaping.  Then they held a mock trial and sentenced Lopes to death.  Pereira da Silva killed Lopes with a sword, and his body was burned and buried in a clandestine cemetery, said the suspects.

 

25.        On September 30, 2002, journalist Domingos Sávio Brandão Lima Júnior was murdered.  Brandão was the owner, publisher, and a columnist of the daily Folha do Estado, which is based in the city of Cuiabá, in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.  Brandão was shot at least 5 times by two unidentified men on a motorcycle, according to several news reports.[ii]  The two men had been waiting for Brandão near the paper's new offices, which are under construction.  According to the information received, several people witnessed the murder.  According to news information, Brandão's death relates to the paper's extensive coverage of drug trafficking, illegal gambling, and acts of corruption involving public officials, but also mentioned that the journalist was a businessman who owned construction and publishing companies.  Brandão had not received any threats, according to the newspaper.  Police investigators said evidence indicates that his murder was a contract killing, but that the motive remains unclear.[iii]

 

26.        On 1 October 2002, Hércules Araújo Coutinho, a military police sergeant, and Célio Alves de Souza, a former military policy officer, were arrested for their alleged participation in the crime.  Hércules Araújo Coutinho was recognized by witnesses as one of the killers.  He was also implicated by the ballistic experts’ examination and fingerprints connecting him with five other murders that had occurred in the region during the year.[iv]

 

Threats and aggression

 

27.        In September 2002, Saulto Borges and Joana Queiroz, reporters for the newspaper A Crítica in the city of Manaus, northern state of Amazonas, and Jutan Araújo, a journalist with the television station Camaçari, in the city of Camaçari in the northeastern state of Bahia, reported that they had been threatened.  According to the information provided, starting the week of August 26 to 30, the journalists for A Crítica complained of receiving intimidating calls after initiating an investigation into homicides committed by a group which, according to them, was engaged in an extermination campaign in Amazonas.  Araújo claimed to have received death threats on the telephone after writing an article on persons occupying properties in a neighborhood of Camaçari, a town near Salvador, the capital of Bahia.  Araújo added that in the last call, an unknown person assured him that he was very familiar with his daily routine and that his every step was being followed.[v]

 

Positive developments

 

28.        The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression was informed by the Brazilian State that on October 25, 2002, the Superior Electoral Tribunal of Brazil decided, on a summary basis and by unanimous vote, to invalidate the prior censorship being imposed on the newspaper Correio Braziliense in connection with the publication of telephone recordings linking the Governor of Brasilia, Joaquim Roriz a Roriz, with businessmen accused of crimes against the state.  The day before, October 24, a judge on the Regional Electoral Tribunal of Brazil had ordered that a judicial officer and the attorney for the Governor’s political party supervise the content of every page of the October 24 edition of the newspaper Correio Braziliense.

 

29.        Correio Braziliense and other sources had published information on telephone recordings taped by the Federal Police in connection with a court case entailing the investigation of two businessmen, brothers surnamed Passos, under suspicion of irregular real estate zoning activities.  As later revealed, some of those intercepted conversations linked the Governor Roriz with these businessmen.  In late September, Judge Meguerian of the Regional Electoral Tribunal (TRE), had ordered that no one should publish the content of these recordings.  He later reversed this decision since the tapes had already been made public on television and the Internet.  Three weeks later, the judge acted on the Governor’s request regarding the edition of Correio.  According to the paper, the judge prohibited publication of a 35-line article entitled “Influence in the government,” which only referred to the tapes in question and did not reproduce the conversations between Roriz and one of the Passos brothers.[vi]

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