BRAZILIAN SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL SENTENCE GOVERNMENT TO COMPENSATE CITIZEN ILLEGALY INPRISIONED FOR 13 YEARS.
Brazilian Supreme Court of Appeal sentenced Government, in last resort, to pay a R$ 2 millions compensation to Marcos Mariano da Silva for being illegaly confined for more than 13 years in the prison Anibal Bruno, in Recife. All the Supreme Court Administrators recognized the extreme cruelty to which a citizen has been subjected by the public institutions. According to the court, this case represents the most serious human violation ever seen in the Brazilian society.
Marcos Mariano da Silva was arrested in July 27th 1985 and got an habeas-corpus in August 25th 1998. According to the lawyer José Afonso Bragança, Marcos innocence started being discussed only after the police officer Roberto Galindo took on the prison management and decided to do some extra work to solve the large amount of cases still to be considered. The lawyer says that Marcos was arrested with no enquiry, no judgement and no possibility of defence at all. In prison he became blind of both eyes because of some splinters of a bomb dropped during a riot and was subjected to any sort of moral embarrassment as well.
According to the Supreme Court note, the Administrator Denise Arruda said the episode puts into evidence the total lack of communication between Public Prosecutor, Executive and Judicial Power. Dr José Afonso Bragança had asked for his client the sum of R$ 6 millions. Since left prison Marcos has been receiving only R$ 1.200,00 as a pension granted by the state of Pernambuco. The grant of pension is based on a bill came into force in June of this year. The administrator Luis Fux, the trial lecturer, decided to see again the compensation request and gave won the case to Marcos Mariano.