Superior Court of Justice orders release of police officers accused of massacre in Pará.

By Carolina Gonçalves - Reporter for Agência Brasil

Just over a year after the massacre that killed ten rural workers in Pau D'Arco, in the municipality of Redenção, in Pará, the police officers accused of participating in the crime may be released again and face trial while free.

A decision by Minister Ribeiro Dantas of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) overturned the appeal filed by prosecutors from Pará who were requesting that the detentions be maintained.

Advisors at the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) explained that, upon analyzing the documents, Ribeiro Dantas understood that the appeal was filed after the deadline, "in addition to having other deficiencies, such as not indicating which legal provision was violated."

The officers had been released last year when the Court of Justice of Pará (TJPA) accepted a habeas corpus petition, considering that there was no "concrete element indicating the possibility of the defendants frustrating the application of criminal law or representing a risk to public order, especially since they have fixed residences, hold the position of police officers belonging to the State Military Police, and are first-time offenders, with no criminal record."

Request for provisional guardianship

Prosecutors attempted to appeal, but, failing to do so at the TJPA (Court of Justice of Pará), filed a request for provisional relief with the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) to suspend the release of the police officers until the special appeal was analyzed by the Court. Since everything occurred in December 2017, during the Judiciary's recess, it fell to the president of the STJ, Minister Laurita Vaz, to decide. At that time, she reinstated the imprisonment of the accused.

The prosecutors' argument is that, if released, the police officers could threaten witnesses who survived the massacre, as well as jeopardize the investigations.

The crime occurred during a repossession operation at a camp on the Santa Lúcia Farm on May 24, 2017, with the participation of 29 police officers. Following the announcement of the deaths of nine men and one woman who were part of a group of landless people, the Pará State Secretariat for Public Security and Social Defense ordered the temporary removal of 21 military personnel and eight civilians from their posts. Seventeen officers were subsequently arrested.

Contacted by Agência Brasil, the press office of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Pará did not comment.