Police officers accused of torture and death in Porto Seguro.
Three Bahia state civil police officers are suspected of beating and killing a 21-year-old man inside the holding cell of the Porto Seguro police station; the crime, which is already under investigation, occurred on Saturday night.
Agência BrasilThe judge of the 1st Criminal Court of the District of Porto Seguro, André Marcelo Strogenski, issued on Monday (16) preventive arrest warrants against investigators Otávio Garcia Gomes (43), Joaquim Pinto Neto (42) and Robertson Lino Gomes da Costa (44), suspected of beating Ricardo Santos Dias. Treated at a health unit in the region, Dias died due to the injuries.
Also ordered was the preventive arrest of Costa's son, Murilo Bouson de Souza Costa (22), suspected of having participated in the beating of Dias. Still not located, the four men are considered fugitives from justice.
Accused of murdering a shopkeeper during a robbery at a store in downtown Porto Seguro, last Wednesday (11), Ricardo Dias had been arrested hours before being beaten. According to the Civil Police press office, Dias and three other men (two of whom were teenagers) were arrested in flagrante delicto for drug trafficking and, in Dias' case, also for illegal possession of a weapon.
At the Porto Seguro police station, investigators verified that Dias was accused of killing the shopkeeper a few days earlier. According to the Civil Police press office, the other man arrested along with Dias was also beaten, but, after receiving medical attention, survived his injuries.
The Inspector General of the Public Security Secretariat, Nélson Gaspar, and the Inspector General of the Civil Police, Delegate Iracema Silva de Jesus, traveled to Porto Seguro yesterday to monitor the investigations, which are being conducted by the 23rd Regional Police Coordination Office of the Interior, located in the city of Eunápolis.
The officer in charge of the investigation, Evy Paternostro, has already interviewed witnesses to the crime and requested forensic examinations. According to the State Secretariat of Public Security, security cameras at the police station recorded the moment the accused entered and left the scene of the crime on the day and at the location of the crime.
In addition to facing a criminal investigation, the police officers will also face disciplinary proceedings and could be dismissed from the force.
The case occurs just days after the National Council of Justice (CNJ) to have classified the Bahian penal system as chaotic It was recommended to the state government that existing holding cells be deactivated in police stations in the Salvador metropolitan area, in addition to transferring prisoners, including those awaiting trial, to state penitentiaries.