DRUGS-BRAZIL: Trafficking Spreads to Gov’t Institutions

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 21 1999 (IPS) - The assassination of a Brazilian judge, who denounced his colleagues and accused a state legislator of being a crime boss, is an indicator that drug-trafficking now threatens government institutions.

Judge Leopoldino Marques do Amaral was found dead September 7 in Paraguay, with two bullets in his head and his body partially burned.

The execution has made life difficult for 16 of the 20 members of the Court of Justice in Mato Grosso, a state on the Bolivian border. The judge had accused the 16 of numerous irregularities, ranging from nepotism to “selling” favourable court sentences to drug-trafficking.

The judge had sent accusations July 23 to a Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPI) about the state judiciary’s irregularities, which he had also made public in a television appearance just days before he was assassinated.

The federal police have already detained several suspects, and have a key witness under protection – a legal clerk who was the last person to have contact with the victim.

In the days before his murder, the judge had been investigating the bribery of some of his colleagues by drug traffickers and, according to another witness, had received documents proving his suspicions the day before he disappeared.

The CPI itself had gathered information that courts in Manaos, capital of Amazonas state, had facilitated the release of many known traffickers, including several Colombians.

Another CPI, which specialises in drug-trafficking investigations, concluded that legislative deputy Hildebrando Pascoal was the head of a drug ring and a death squad in Acre state, which borders Bolivia and Peru.

The Chamber of Deputies must approve Pascoal’s removal in the next few days. The CPI will then immediately ask for his arrest, announced the commission’s president, Magno Malta. The commission may not request the arrest before the removal because Pascoal has parliamentary immunity until then.

The parliamentary investigations cover 27 people involved in organised crime in Acre. Their arrests are also pending. Several police are included in the group and, according to the accusations, are responsible for more than 30 assassinations.

Several people who offered testimony to the CPI have remained anonymous and will be included in the Witness Protection Programme created this year by the justice ministry.

All the information collected by the CPI will be sent to the Acre Public Prosecutor’s Office so that “justice does its job and punishes the criminals,” said Malta.

Deputy Moroni Torgan, the CPI rapporteur on drug-trafficking, will propose that the CPI be designated as a permanent parliamentary body, given the seriousness of drug-trafficking’s infiltration in the executive, legal and judicial branches of the government, said a report in Sunday’s O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper.

In addition to courts releasing traffickers and the power in the hands of organised crime in Acre, Torgan said that aircraft belonging to the Brazilian air force were used to transport drugs.

Three months ago, in an operation led by air force officials, a shipment of 33 kilos of cocaine was discovered in an air force airplane destined for Spain.

The evidence revealed by the two CPIs indicate that the penetration of drug-trafficking into government institutions is worse in the Brazilian states bordering Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, the world’s three main cocaine-producing nations.

The growing consumption of illegal drugs in Brazil, especially among young people, is another source of concern for authorities.

In a survey by the Brazilian Centre for Analysis and Planning for the health ministry, 13 percent of the poll participants between ages 16 and 65, or 7.5 million Brazilians, said they consume some type of drug.

The rate is higher among the nation’s youth – 34.6 percent – especially adolescents from the upper income levels, where 58.6 percent have at least tried drugs. Marijuana seems to be the drug of choice, but of those who use drugs, 21 percent take cocaine.