The Public Defender’s Office (DPU) in Amazonas reported that it asked last Tuesday (11) to the Federal Regional Court of the 1st. Region, in Brasília, the revocation of the temporary arrests of the five Teremim Indians, who have been imprisoned since January 30, in Porto Velho (RO), under accusation by the Federal Police of involvement in the deaths of three men in the Tenharim-Marmelos indigenous reserve .
According to a note released by the DPU, public defenders Caio Paiva, Bárbara Pires, Carlos Marão, Edilson Santana, Luiza Cavalcanti, Thomas Luchsinger and Vanessa Figueiredo argue in the habeas corpus request that “there is no concrete evidence that the accused, in freedom, would threaten witnesses and would not harm the investigations”. The entire habeas corpus was not released to the press.
O Real Amazon tried to hear the defenders, but they will not comment beyond the note, according to the press office.
The Indians Gilvan Tenharim, Gilson Tenharim, Domiceno Tenharim, Valdinar Tenharim and Simeão Tenharim are imprisoned in the Resocialization Center of Vale do Guaporé, in the rural area of Porto Velho (RO). Gilvan and Gilson are the sons of Ivan Tenharim, an indigenous leader, who, according to the PF, died in a motorcycle accident on the BR-230 (Transamazônica) highway. In the investigation, the death of the chief is pointed out as the reason for the murders of the three men for revenge. The five Terem Indians deny involvement in the crime.
According to the DPU, two more Indians were indicted in the crimes of kidnapping, murder and hiding bodies against the victims Stef Pinheiro, Luciano Freire and Aldeney Salvador, in addition to the five Indians who are currently in prison. The Federal Police say the deaths took place on December 16 of last year near the village of Taboca, 137 kilometers from Humaitá. The bodies of the three men were found on February 3 in the same region.
In habeas corpus, the defenders justify the request for freedom by saying that the Federal Police relied “mainly on the testimonies of anonymous witnesses to conclude the investigations, violating international human rights pacts to which Brazil is a signatory, constituting illicit evidence.” .
For the DPU, anonymous witnesses cannot be “contradicted by the defense”, a situation that denies the accused the constitutional right to contradictory, ample defense and due process of law”. For this reason, the DPU requests the exclusion of the records of the testimonies of such witnesses. “The investigation produced so far is a failed attempt, as it was completed in less than two months in a village where almost a thousand Terim Indians live,” says the document, according to the note.
One of the habeas corpus excerpts says, according to the DPU note, that “five Indians were selected from ‘anonymous witnesses’, Indians who were arrested only so that the local community of Humaitá/AM had a sense of justice (or of revenge…)”.
The DPU also says that the defenders ask that, if the habeas corpus is not granted by the TRT, the five arrested Indians be sent to a place indicated by the National Indian Foundation (Funai), in a semi-liberty regime, based on the Statute of the Indian, a 1973 legislation.
wanted by Real Amazon , the PF press office in Rondônia said it would not comment on the DPU’s arguments about the Indians’ request for freedom. The advisory did not disclose the names of the other two indicted Indians, justifying that the investigations are under judicial secrecy.
Preconception
Public defenders also question the court decision that extended the temporary detention of the accused. They claim that they identified in the decision a “speech that attributes the arrest of the Terim Indians to the purpose of social pacification between different cultures”. In the opinion of the defenders, this discourse constitutes ethnic prejudice.
To highlight what it considers prejudice, the DPU authorized the press office to publish one of the excerpts from the court decision that extended the arrest: “It turns out that this is a complex case, which involves an extensive territorial area and an investigation that must be carried out with extreme caution and sensitivity as it involves a potential conflict between different cultures, namely indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, who have lived the last few months in a situation of high tension”.
According to the note, in the defense’s view, in addition to indicating that the terem are imprisoned solely to satisfy the local community of Humaitá, the judge’s speech “covers up and gives an air of legal scientificity to the case, blurring an ethnic prejudice, a colonialist feeling of eternal domination of indigenous peoples and, therefore, disguise the problem as if temporary detention was necessary for investigations”.
On February 27, the five Indians had their temporary detention extended for another 30 by the Federal Justice of Amazonas. Judge Márcio André Lopes Cavalcante, from the 2nd. Federal Court (Criminal), followed the opinion of the Attorney of the Republic Edmilson Barreiros, of the Federal Public Ministry in Amazonas. The judge’s decision did not comply, at that time, with a request from the Federal Police, who wanted preventive detention.
O Real Amazon found that the indigenous people are in the same cell and receive visits every week from family members who live in the Tenharim-Marmelos Indigenous Land.
Revolt
The Federal Police’s delay in investigating the disappearances of Stef Pinheiro, Luciano Freire and Aldeney Salvador generated anger in the families of the disappeared that spread to the entire population of the municipalities of Humaitá and Apuí.
The family drama took on other contours, when the revolt against the disappearance of men grew and led the population to protest against the collection of tolls by the indigenous people. Cornered by the population, the indigenous terim and jiahui were instructed by the authorities to move only within their villages. Only in case of need, some leaders left the villages, always in secrecy or escorted.
Last Monday, in an interview with the website, Ivanildo Tenharim said that the National Security Force, which had been sent to protect the Tenharim-Marmelos Indigenous Land, had already left the site. Only a few agents from the Federal Highway Police and the Army remain.
