The (Big) State of Brazilian Journalism

Pitiful, how the Estado de S. Paulo metro daily has taken to the production of quasi-fake news of late, in the form of topical coverage of conference events produced by the newspaper itself for its various clients and then reported on as if objectively newsworthy. 

Car Wash Judge: Spy for the FBI?

Together with [Supreme Court Justice] Gilmar Mendes, Judge Moro symbolizes the biased and partisan justice system that plagues Brazil.

Paulo Nogueira of the Diário do Centro do Mundo on recent debate over Brazilian friends of Uncle Sam and his beloved GWOT.

Marilena Chauí was quite right to say some of what she said recently about Judge Moro.

PT | Sue You Too

Source:  PT (Brazilian political party)

The national president of the Workers’ Party,  Rui Falcão, announced today (February 11), that the party will sue former Petrobras manager Pedro Brausco, who accused the finance secretary of our party, João Vaccari Neto, of acting as a go-between in illegal fundraising for the party, without presenting any proof of this accusation.

Car Wash Witness | Contrary to Fact Conditional Parole?

“They knew everything”

I was leafing idly through the news coverage of Operation Car Wash — a megascandal with dozens of suspects of operating illegally inside Petrobras — thinking of doing a coverage timeline of the scandal,  when I came across a surprising statement.

TV Globo said that its sources did not confirm the version published by Veja, and described the Folha article as “distorted.”

It is very rare to see these particular establishment media outlets criticizing one another in this way.  Normally, stories like this are handled as a three-man tag-team match.

According to Valor, however, the naming of politicians involved in the case will not occur until February — Ash Wednesday, when people finally get back to work.

A tropical W$J or FT in incubation, Valor has published as a joint venture with O Globo and the Folha de S. Paulo — odd bedfellows — since May 2000. With the demise of the Gazeta Mercantil, it represents a relative concentration of the market shared with Brasil Econômico — a cousin to the Rio daily O Dia — and the business pages of the Estado de S. Paulo, along with the weekly Exame (Abril).

Bloomberg, Reuters. AFP, Yahoo News and others add a foreign flavor to the mix. The flow of information from various sources cannot but encourage the market observer.

Rumor and leakage in the Petrobras case do appear to have died down since mid-December as defendants — and officers of the court, including the federal police  — honor the gag order, in the case of defendants on pain of losing their plea deal, and leaky civil servants suffering administrative punishment.

Backgrounders [+]:

1. Car Wash | Big Brother Is Watching
2. Nassif on Car Wash | The Tipping Point?
3. Watergate Braziliense: The Leaky Police on the Leaky Police

Source: CartaCapital (October 30, 2014):

Correction to Youssef deposition is a “lie,” attorney says.

Deep Float | Petrobras Underwater, Fire

A back of the napkin outline of the Pasadena scheme

Item.

•  Estado de S. Paulo | Fausto Macedo

There is curiosity today as to the identity of a “deep throat” witness in the Petrobras corruption megascandal.

One month after Operation Car Wash was carried out, in the middle of this year, a career public servant with 30 years of service approached federal agents in charge of the task force and denounced Petrobras for ignoring “signs of criminal behavior” and “intentional mismanagement” inside the state-run petroleum giant “in order to divert funds without awakening the suspicions of auditors and inspectors.”

Together with the acquisition of the Pasadena Refinery in the U.S. – the most emblematic of the charges involving the case — the witness named former Mines and Energy minister Edson Lobão as the “godfather” of one of the suspects and [alleged that] current Petrobras CEO Graça Foster was responsible for the nomination of two other senior executives in the foreign trade division, supposedly responsible for a sale of assets to Nigeria that had led to losses for the company.

Was it a note with awful grammar from some General Nigeriano Ubuntu offering you a handsome sum for laundering some huge amount of cash through your account?

This is the Nigerian Third World Corruption scam. Purge it from your e-mail client. A variant is the wealthy but oppressed damsel in distress, for those more responsive to an emotional stimulus, and might be called the Rwandan Woman in Fear for her Life gambit.

During a four-hour closed session held on April 28 in Rio de Janeiro, – the transcript was appended to the Car Wash case file on Tuesday — the «informant», whose name will not be released during continuing investigations, described six cases of alleged criminal misconduct, chief among them the acquisition of  Pasadena, initiated in 2005. The deal, valued at US$ 359 million at the outset, wound up cost US$ 1,2 bilhão, causing Petrobras to suffer a US$ 793 million, according to the federal accounting tribunal (TCU).

[ … translation to come …]

Rio Rackets | Big Wheel Keeps on Turning

Source: G1

The state attorney of Goias filed charges this week against 28 police officers suspected of affording favorable treatment to the criminal racket commanded by Carlos Augusto de Almeida Ramos — aka Charlie Waterfall.

According to the indictment, these officers were paid in cash and other benefits to overlook evidence or even actively boycott investigation of a gambling and corruption organization revealed by Operation Monte Carlo, a police action dating back to February 2012.

The 28 police were charged with active and passive corruption and  violation of confidentiality policies. Prosecutors say the police group was “the armed faction of the criminal organization.”

The case will be heard by a military court.

Traffic and Militia War in Western Zone

Students take cover in the Complexo da Maré

Source: VEJA

Has all the hallmarks of Veja news reporting … the crude appeal to sentiment and the political pointed finger.

War between drug traffic and militia closes six Rio schools

Exchange of gunfire between two groups, at war over territorial control, prevents 2,238 students from attending class in Western Zone of Rio.

The turf wars between the drug traffic and the militia caused six schools to close their doors on Wednesday in the Western Zone of Rio. Due to the fear aroused by the confrontations, 2,238 students missed class. The region is protected by a single Police Pacification Unit (UPP) — even though this policy is a proven failure in areas where it has been implanted, such as the Rocinha slums and the Alemao complex.

Comendador Gets 19 Years

Source:  Associação Brasileira da Imprensa | Fato Notório

The sentencing council of a Cuiabá criminal court has voted, 4-3, to sentence former state policeman turned organized crime boss to 19 years in prison for arranging the  murder of Domingos Sávio Brandão de Lima Filho Junior, 41, owner of the daily Folha do Estado, in September 2002.

According to the state high court of Mato Gross (TJ-MT), Judge Marcos Faleiro set the sentence at 19 years because João Arcanjo Ribeiro ordered subordinates to commit murder, doubly qualified …

The federal Public Ministry declared at the the time that Sávio Brandão published various articles in his newspaper denouncing a criminal organization led the defendant, who denies the claim.

Comendador João Arcanjo Ribeiro — the honorary title conferred upon Arcanjo by the legislative assembly of Mato Grosso — will initially be subject to maximum security and will not be allowed to await the results of his appeals in freedom. The comendador has been in preventive detention since  2003, accused of taking part in the murders of Mauro Sérgio Manhoso, Rivelino Jacques Brunini, Fauze Rachid Jaudy, Valdir Pereira, Leandro Gomes dos Santos, Celso Borges, and Mauro Celso de Moraes. There is also a charge attempted murder targeting Gisleno Fernandes. All the crimes were registered between 2000 and 2002 in Cuiabá and Várzea Grande.

The trial of Arcanjo, expected to last two days, began [last Thursday] morning. There was a heavy police presence. Immediately following the sentencing jury and the passing of sentence, at 9:00 a.m.  Arcanjo’s attorney argued for the dismissal of the charges. On the previous day, the federal appears court,  Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ), had already rejected a petition against the use of a popular jury.

According to the Folha de S. Paulo, senior magistrate Rui Ribeiro, of the TJ-MT, had turned down a petition b Arcanjo to dispense with the jury, arguing that the local presss, “in solidarity with the victime has produced a publicity massacre of the  defendant.” The judge found the intense interest in the murder of Brandão “only natural.”

The defense also tried to prevent the presentation of evidence by two informants enlisted by the MP: Police official Luciano Inácio, who authored the final report in the case, and Senator Pedro Taques, who, as Attorney-General of the Union, took part in investigating other crimes in which the comendador took part. The honorary title comendador was granted by the state legislative assembly of Mato Grosso.

Charges

Among the witnesses for the accusation, the jury heard from Luiza Marília de Barros Lima, sister of the victim and a witness to the crime, and Maria Luiza Clarentino de Souza, former employee of the daily Folha do Estado de Mato Grosso.

Arcanjo revealed to the judge his involvement in numbers rackeering and casinos, but denied involvement in “nickel hunter” slot machines, as well as the murder of the journalist.

I believe I read at the time that he owned a modest factoring business.

The defendant said he had not been offended by articles published by Sávio Brandão which targeted Arcanjo. “I am a person of humble origins, and ex-cop, a prospector and a successful numbers entrepreneur. People don’t accept that,” Arcanjo said.

After the pronouncement of sentence, relatives of Sávio Brandão seemed relieved:

— We have lived through a very difficult episode in our lives. Now, we fee relieved. It is sad that I cannot hold my son in my arms, said the mother of the victim.

The Crime

Domingos Sávio Brandão de Lima Junior was murdered on Septmber 30, 2002, at 3:30 p.m. in the Consil neighborhood of  Cuiabá. he was struck by gunfire from a 9mm piestol and died on the scene.

The MP-MT accused João Arcanjo Ribeiro of ordering the crime.  Célio Alves de Souza, Hércules Araújo Agostinho, Fernando Barbosa Belo and João Leite were part of the group responsible for the execution of the publisher. 

The death of Sávio Brandão shocked Brazi and led to a major police operation known as “Noah’s Ark,”in 2002. The operation dismantled the comendador’s operation, but he managed to make his escape to Uruguay, where he was captured in April 2003.

The trial of Arcanjo, which has followed legal channels since September 2003, is based on 25 volumes and more than 5,500 pages.

Due to the countless appeals filed by defense counsel in the past 10 years, the case has been considered by every instance of the judiciary, included the Supreme Court and the federal appeals court (STJ).  On September 16 of thisyear, Cuiabá Judge Mônica Catarina Perri Siqueira, set October 24 as the day for trial by jury.

 

Rio | By Any Means Necessary?

Source:  CartaCapital

Title: How Far Will Cabral’s Police Go?

By: José Antonio Lima — published 23/07/2013 12:56

Translation: Colin Brayton

Recent actions and statements by the PM-RJ reflect the governor’s policy of “against vandals, anything goes.

[photo caption]”Military police protect themselves from a firebomb thrown by a demonstrator in the area of the Palácio Guanabara, on Monday, July 22. The photographer who took the photo was later assaulted by a police officer.

In the news this morning is the decree by the Governor of Rio de Janeiro state creating a police task force specifically targeting vandals — from opportunistic looters to Black Blockers. I would have led  with the threats against a prominent police critic, as you will read further along.

The “angry” Twitter activity of the PMERJ — Rio military police — during the course of the event lashed out at OAB attorneys — the Brazilian ABA, if you will — for standing in the way of its work. This is a deeply rooted mentality: “You have rights only after I say you do.”