Judge grants Brazilian citizenship to boy kidnapped by smugglers in Haiti.

Claudio Julio Tognolli _247 – Innovative for having created the first court in Latin America where the parties know the exact date their cases will end, federal judge Ali Mazloum has issued a ruling that will leave the Attorney General's Office and the Ministry of Justice in a bind: Mazloum demands that the Brazilian government grant citizenship to a Haitian boy, now 14 years old, brought to São Paulo by a gang of coyotes (smugglers), who stole him from his mother.

The Haitian boy was abandoned in São Paulo and found wandering at the Corinthians-Itaquera Metro station on December 21, 2009. His mother, a resident of French Guiana, hired three smugglers. The traffickers picked up the boy from the city of Fundos dos Negros, in the interior of Haiti, on December 1, 2009. The boy traveled to Latin America on a Copa Airlines plane. He passed through Panama and Peru, arrived in Argentina on December 15, and a week later was left at the São Paulo Metro station.

Picked up by subway security, the boy was placed under the guardianship of Judge Paulo Fadigas, of the Children and Youth Court of São Paulo. According to the judge, three people tried to reclaim the boy there. These three people are the coyotes.

According to Ali Mazloum's investigations, the group of coyotes is led by Jean Paul Samuel Myrthil. He is the one who commands the coyotes Guirlande Baptistin, Jean Pierre Sainvil, Witchine Cadet, and Sandra Lorthe.

Jean Paul Samuel Myrthil's treachery was so great that, after bringing the boy to São Paulo, he called Diuele Goin, the boy's mother. Speaking from Port-au-Prince to Guyana, he told the mother, "I've increased the price, and to take him now I want another thousand euros." The mother, who had already paid US$1,9 for the "smuggling," said she had no more money. Jean Paul Samuel Myrthil replied curtly, "Okay, then you don't pay me, and your son is gone... I'll just drop him off somewhere." And the boy was literally dumped in the far east of São Paulo.

This Friday, Ali Mazloum decreed that the Federal Police issue a Red Alert, so that coyotes can be hunted down in all airports around the world.

It is estimated that 50 Haitian minors, brought to Brazil by smugglers, live in the country. Thirty of them are girls.

 “The boy has had three years of his childhood stolen from him, far from his family, without social interaction, as he has no documents and bureaucracy prevented him from traveling to French Guiana where his mother lives. I received the complaint against the gang and placed the minor in a victim and witness protection program. For humanitarian reasons, I went further. I understood that Brazil is co-responsible for the minor's dramatic situation. I ordered that Brazilian citizenship be granted to the boy, so that he can have an identity and be able to travel to be with his family,” said federal judge Ali Mazloum to Brasil 247.

The issue will create controversy, since the naturalization process has a rigid legal framework that does not foresee this case. It is expected that the Attorney General's Office and the Ministry of Justice will resist Mazloum's decision. "But I think making the minor a 'little Brazilian' is the only way to minimize his suffering," says Mazloum.

The boy's case was revealed by the TV Globo program Fantástico on April 17, 2011. See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRHoTuE6xng