6
g)
with respect to assignment of a civil police unit to accelerate the
criminal investigation, it has been established that the investigations have not
been entrusted to a special unit, and no one has been indicted for the deaths
of the 27 inmates;
h)
the statement made by the State to the effect that there is no
evidence that State agents participated in the deaths of 38 prisoners during
this year prejudges the subject matter of a police inquiry and an
administrative investigation. It also reveals the bias and lack of involvement
of the federal government to establish the responsibility of State authorities
for the murders in the Urso Branco Prison, and it ignores the responsibility of
the State to ensure the life and personal safety of the inmates under its
custody. Furthermore, in the case of the murder of inmate Francisco Néri da
Conceição, participation of a police officer has been established; and
i)
400 of the 860 inmates at the Urso Branco Prison are provisional, that
is, they are awaiting trial.
The Commission also reported certain especially grave facts that took place after the
Court ordered the provisional measures, among which the following stand out:
a)
on June 23, 2002, an inmate was murdered within the prison, with
deep wounds to his head and nape. The press reported that to reach the
place where the inmate was located, the perpetrators broke recently-built
double walls;
b)
308 inmates of the A and B pavilions were placed in the jail courtyard
as punishment from June 23 to 27, 2002. They were in the open courtyard
four consecutive days, naked, without food, receiving water sporadically,
without access to bathrooms; they were beaten and their heads were shaved.
Furthermore, all the personal belongings of these inmates (clothes, TV sets,
personal documents, medicine) were taken out of their cells and thrown into a
place called the “church”, so that when they returned to their cells, after four
days under the sun and without a roof, they did not find their personal
belongings, and this caused great unrest among the inmates;
c)
on July 5, 2002, roughly 34 detainees from the Police Station at Porto
Velho were transferred to the Urso Branco Prison and placed in one of the
“safe cells” together with the nine detainees already there. The detainees
who were transferred beat the nine inmates who were in the “safe cell”
already, in face of which the agents of the Riot Control Company entered the
cell and assaulted all the inmates. The nine inmates who had been attacked
were provisionally placed in the nursery, which is near the cell where the
prisoners who had beaten them were. Furthermore, the inmates who were
beaten receive death threats daily;
d)
22 inmates have received death threats, including the nine who were
attacked on July 5, 2002, and two survivors of the January 1 and 2, 2002
massacre, who have received death threats because they stated who some of
the authors of the massacre were. Only 13 of the inmates who received
death threats have been transferred to the Enio Pinheiro Prison;