From: hrcoord@igc.apc.org (Human Rights Coordinator)
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Subject: BRAZIL: prison massacre
Date: 11 Oct 92 15:00:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1476700617:000:3639
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Oct 11 08:00:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: BRAZIL: prison massacre

/* Written 10:21 pm  Oct 10, 1992 by aiusala@igc.apc.org in igc:ai.general */
Amnesty International
International Secretariat
1 Easton Street
London WC1X 8DJ
United Kingdom

EXTERNAL 8 October 1992

BRAZIL: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL SENDS FACT-FINDING
DELEGATION TO SAO PAULO TO INVESTIGATE PRISON MASSACRE

Amnesty International will be sending a forensic doctor to
join a delegate already in Sao Paulo investigating the
massacre at the Detention House prison (Casa de Detenao).

      The human rights organization said that at least 111
prisoners were killed and 35 wounded in circumstances that
suggest that many of them were extrajudicially executed by
military police.

      Amnesty International welcomes the appointment of a
commission of inquiry by the Minister of Justice into the
circumstances of the killings. The organization urges that
the commission will be given all the necessary powers to
conduct a thorough, prompt and impartial investigation and
that their conclusions will be made public.

      According to a state security spokesman, quoted in the
Brazilian press, the violence at the jail began in the
afternoon of Friday 2 October, when rival gangs in Pavilion
9 attacked each other with home made knives, clubs and guns
in the pavilion's central patio. The conflict allegedly
spread into a general uprising of more than 2000 prisoners
in that pavilion, leading prison officers to call in
military police.

      After efforts to negotiate allegedly failed, several
hundred Sao Paulo state Military Police officers, backed by
helicopters, moved in to take control of the prison at dusk.
Most of the inmate deaths allegedly resulted from gunshots.

      The authorities acknowledged that the police used
machine guns against the prisoners. No police officer was
killed during the action, but 22 were reportedly injured.
The police reported that 13 revolvers and dozens of home
made knives were recovered from inside Pavilion 9. The
police didn't allow the prison wardens into the prison until
the following day and news about the number of victims were
not released until Saturday evening.

      According to reports received by Amnesty International
the prisoners denied that they were armed with guns and said
that no shots were fired at the police and that no prisoner
was killed by their fellow prisoners. They denied that there
were any plans for a massive escape as claimed by the state
authorities.

      The prisoners alleged that the police fired machine
guns indiscriminately at prisoners and that at a later stage
some prisoners were extrajudicially executed after they had
locked themselves into their cells. The Catholic Chaplain of
the prison told Amnesty International that most of the
bodies he saw appeared to have several shot wounds in the
chest and head and that at least two of them had their hands
joined behind their heads.

      In October 1991 twenty four inmates in a Rio de
Janeiro prison died as a result of a fire allegedly started
by prison officers, and at least 18 others were injured
reportedly from beatings. On 28 February 1992 seven
prisoners were killed by members of the Assault Battalion
(Batalhao de Choque) of the Military Police during a riot at
the An!bal Bruno prison in Recife, Pernambuco state. In July
1992 twelve prisoners and a prison officer were killed
during an attempted breakout from the 64th Police Station,
Delegac!a Policial, in Sao Joao de Meriti, Rio de Janeiro
state. To Amnesty International's knowledge, none of those
responsible for the killings has been brought to justice.