The Federal Public Defender’s Office (DPU) will file a new habeas corpus request this Monday (14th), this time at the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), to release the five indigenous people of the Temerim ethnic group who have been imprisoned for more than two months. in Rondônia.
The habeas corpus will be filed by the Federal Public Defender of 1st Category, Elzano Braun, who works with the Superior Courts, in Brasília. According to information from the press office of the DPU in Amazonas, the new request to release the five Indians will not prejudice the merits judgment by the Federal Regional Court (TRF) of the habeas corpus previously filed. The first habeas corpus was denied by the judge Hilton Queiroz.
On March 28, the Federal Justice of Amazonas converted the temporary detention into preventive detention, a measure that can keep the indigenous people until the trial, if the Federal Public Ministry offers a complaint.
Indigenous people Domiceno Tenharim, Gilson Tenharim, Gilvan Tenharim, Valdinar Tenharim and Simeão Tenharim have been imprisoned at the Vale do Guaporé Resocialization Center, in rural Porto Velho, since January 30.
The five indigenous people are accused by the Federal Police of murder, kidnapping and hiding the corpse of Stef Pinheiro, Luciano Freire and Aldeney Salvador. The three men disappeared last December and, after searching for more than a month, their bodies were found in an area close to the Tenharim-Marmelos Indigenous Land, in the south of the state of Amazonas. The disappearance caused a wave of revolt by the population of Humaitá against the indigenous people. The revolt collectively extended to the entire Terim ethnic group.
In an exclusive interview with the agency Real Amazon , Elzano Braun, who is responsible for the 3rd Regional Criminal Office, said that the habeas corpus request will not bring new elements in relation to the first already filed by the DPU in Amazonas, but that the core will be “the right of any citizen, preferably, to respond to the free trial”. Read Elzano Braun’s interview below:
The habeas corpus filed in the STJ will add new elements?
Essentially, no. The core of the request, the right of any citizen, preferably, to respond to the process in freedom, avoiding the anticipation of the sentence, the presumption of guilt, the irreparable damage of serving a sentence if undue. Anyway, these questions already raised remain the same. What happens now is to take such inquiries to a higher Court for further consideration.
Do you have information about the culture and history of the Terem Indians?
I have the information from the records, from some entities, from fellow defenders in Amazonas, which is very important, because they are closer and the journalistic coverage of the events. On the other hand, in other life activities, I interacted with Indians in Santa Catarina and Amapá. I fear that there is a similarity in the social dramas of these and their neighbors, perhaps most acutely expressed in this region of the Amazon.
How does this knowledge help in the elaboration of the new habeas corpus?
Honestly, the request for a habeas corpus is extremely narrow. In the case, simply, in which the patient responds in freedom or, then, restricted in a less severe way than the closed system, until he is judged. A deep appreciation of the merits, with these internal elements, will need to take place in the course and judgment of the action, if it is brought and against whom, which is not yet known.
Considering that you are dealing with indigenous people, are you going to use anthropological subsidies?
Following the previous answer, yes, but it is not the essence for this request. Even the colleagues of the DPU Amazonas who wrote the initial request (for now, denied by the Regional Court), took care to approach and gather opinion and information in this sense, which will be repeated in the request for consideration by the STJ, even because there are forecasts specific legal (indigenous) laws, such as the fact that it is processed in Federal and not State Courts, and the Indian Statute (in particular, article 56, already invoked by colleagues from Amazonas). But for habes corpus (an incident in the process), I have that these aspects only touch the request; at other procedural moments, they will be more decisive. It is always good to clarify: all other procedural acts will continue to be developed in the first instance of the Federal Justice in Amazonas.
What is the main fact that moves the new habeas corpus request?
The request is driven by a universal value: any citizen must respond in freedom until he is judged, with very narrow exceptions. This is to avoid prior conviction, without process, a deprivation that cannot be returned. If the person is acquitted or even, as a consequence of the assessment of article 56 of the Indian Statute, suffers a mitigation of punishment or guilt. The Primary Authority understood that the circumstances of the deprivation of liberty are present and necessary and this has to be respected. However, it can and must be challenged by the Defense, when it understands that these circumstances are not as consistent or necessary as expressed.
What assessment do you make of the indigenous prison?
This summary arrest, in a case of repercussion, ends up being symbolically displayed as the punishment itself, as satisfying for the understandable pain and revolt of the victims. But it’s not like that. We choose to take advantage of some guarantees when we are sued by the State, from a fine to more serious situations like this. So we need to accept that the penalty comes at the end of the process and that it has to be valid for everyone and, also, that it is individual, each one is sentenced exactly for their action; it does not extend to the person’s family, daughter, wife, community. There are five prisoners. I assume others involved. So these five can be five guilty, five innocent, four guilty and one innocent, one guilty and four innocent. There are no elements that are so sure to disallow any of these hypotheses.
After accessing information about the Teremim Indians and the episodes involving the prison, including recent conflicts, what analysis do you make of the case?
Of course it is a very difficult case. Of those who put our values to the test. That’s why it’s so important: either we have these principles or we don’t. And there is a trap, which is the shadow of litigation and estrangement between these groups, materialized even through the encouragement and use of generalized violence. After all, the Teverim Indians will not be judged (and yes, individually, some members who belong to a village of this group). Neither the conflict of Indians X residents of the region. Neither the toll on their lands, nor the mistakes of the Organs or the omission of the State, although they have their reflexes. I believe that all sorts of resentment and latent differences came to the surface, but criminal action does not have that role, nor will it serve that purpose. This situation would require a long mediation process, which these parties should be involved in. Finally, it will be necessary to have the pretension of overcoming, of living together. The maturity of realizing that whoever at this moment takes advantage of and bets on an Amazonian Gaza Strip will be defeating the entire region.
