news blogBrazil: Prison massacre verdict a "vital" step towards justice
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Posted: 23 April 2013 The conviction of 23 Brazilian police officers for killing inmates in a prison massacre two decades ago is a "vital" step towards justice, Amnesty International said today. The officers were sentenced on Sunday to 156 years each in jail for their role in the deaths of 13 prisoners during bloody riots at São Paulo's Carandiru prison in 1992, in which more than 100 prisoners died.
Atila Roque, Director of Amnesty International in Brazil, said:
"The victims, their families and survivors of this brutal, shocking crime have waited 20 years for justice."
"This vital, if long overdue, ruling will hopefully kickstart a process that brings all those responsible for the killings to justice, including those in command."
The Carandiru case has become emblematic of the flaws in São Paulo’s criminal justice system and its inability to deal with human rights violations.
The authorities have failed to investigate the role of senior state government officials in the massacre, while the conviction of the military operation’s commanding officer Colonel Ubiratan Guimarães was controversially overturned in 2006.
Military police shock troops were sent into Carandiru when a fight among prisoners escalated into a riot on 2 October 1992.
Within days of the massacre, an Amnesty International team visited the prison to gather evidence, which was used to compile a unique record of what had happened.
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