May 24, 2022
15:05
Priscilla Peixoto – Cenarium Magazine
MANAUS – After 14 years in court, one of the 17 investigations involving Raphael Wallace Saraiva de Souza, son of former congressman Wallace Souza, comes to an end on Monday, 23. In the criminal action filed by the Public Ministry in 2008, the prosecutor Rogerio Marques Santos pointed out the participation of Raphael in the death of Luis Joao Macedo de Souza, known as ‘Luis Pulga’, for not accepting the mission to assassinate federal judge Jaiza Maria Pinto Fraxe.
During all these years, the Public Prosecutor’s Office has recognized sufficient evidence of authorship against Raphael. On the other hand, the judge João Mauro Bessa understood that there were no suitable elements in the instruction and rejected the accusation. It is worth remembering that in 2012, Raphael was sentenced to 9 years in prison, in closed regime, for the death of Cleomir Pereira Bernardino, the ‘caçula’, murdered in 2007, and also served time for crimes of association to drug trafficking and illegal possession of a restricted firearm.
According to Judge João Bessa, “A sentence of indictment based exclusively on information obtained in the inquisitorial phase is not admissible, without the indication of elements extracted from judicial evidence and submitted to the scrutiny of the adversary and ample defense that point to the evidence of authorship required by art. 413 of the CPP,” is an excerpt from the document that highlights:
“In casu, by collating and analyzing, in detail, the evidence indicated in the sentence of indictment, one must conclude that, apart from the indirect testimony of one of the witnesses questioned in court, not a single evidence collected in the judicial phase that points to the appellants as authors of the murder that was charged to them subsists, therefore, the evidence produced in the inquisitive phase, although it has served to support the complaint offered by the Parquet, lacks proper confirmation through other judicial evidence, produced under the scrutiny of the adversary and ample defense, being rigorous the dismissal of the accused”, he reports.
Procedural Sentence
Still according to the document, after the instruction of the process, there was a sentence of indictment (a decision that does not end the process, but decides that there are indications of a felony crime against life and, because it is a felony crime against life, the process will be judged by a jury court and not by a judge alone) to take the accused to the jury plenary. But the defense appealed and the judge granted the defense appeal, arguing that the sentence was a true statement of guilt, contrary to the rule. Annulled, the sentence of indictment was redone and this time, edited by Judge George Hamilton.
According to the text, the First Criminal Chamber of Amazonas decided that the sentence of indictment was based only on inquisitorial evidence and testimonies as of “hearsay”. “In the same way, considering the need to preserve the defendant from unfounded and reckless accusations, the most modern jurisprudential orientation rejects the reliability of the testimony of “hearsay” and, therefore, inadmissible the indictment based on this type of evidence, even if produced in court”, signs Bessa.
It is worth remembering that, both Raphael and the other two defendants involved in the case, had already been pronounced for the crime, in 2015, and the defense appealed the sentence in the Court of Amazonas (TJAM). In May 2020, the judges of the 1st Criminal Chamber annulled the sentence of indictment, and the case returned to the 1st Jury Court.
The sentence in case no. 0237936-75.2009.8.04.0001, dated November 13, 2020, determined that the three defendants should be tried by popular jury. The trial should have occurred that same year, but Raphael’s defense, again, filed an appeal.
MPF and request for conviction
In 2010, the Federal Public Ministry in Amazonas (MPF-AM) had already requested the conviction of Raphael Wallace for the crime of coercion in the course of proceedings that occurred during the police investigation to investigate the execution plan against the life of Magistrate Jaiza Fraxe.
At the time, the MPF-AM requested imprisonment of four years and fine (maximum penalty provided for crimes in the Penal Code) of Wallace Souza’s son. In addition, Raphael was indicted for corruption of a witness, a case that also had the imprisonment and fine requested by the MPF-AM.
Recall the case
According to the police investigation in the case file, Raphael Souza with his late father and then state lawmaker Wallace Souza had asked Luis João Macedo de Souza, known as ‘Luis Pulga’, to execute the magistrate Jaiza Fraxe. According to the inquiry produced by the Specialized Homicide and Hijacking Police Station (DEHS), the death ordered the judge would be by the decree of arrest of Colonel of the Military Police of the State of Amazonas, Felipe Arce, along with other people in the so-called “Operation Centurion”.
The action, according to the police investigation inserted in the records, was damaging the interests of a ‘gang’ in which they also took part. When refusing, ‘Pulga’ and Raphael had a disagreement, at another time the discussion happened again and ‘Luis Pulga’ threatened to make a complaint to the Federal Public Ministry (MPF). Afraid of being denounced, Raphael would have hired Juarez dos Santos Medeiros to kill Luís. In April 2008, ‘Luís Pulga’ was executed in a butcher shop in the Coroado neighborhood in the East Zone of Manaus.
Raphael, in company with two other men, had already been pronounced for the crime, in 2015, and the defense of Wallace’s son appealed the sentence in the Court of Justice of Amazonas (TJAM).
In 2020, the sentence in case No. 0237936-75.2009.8.04.0001, of November 13 of the same year, determined that the three defendants should be tried by popular jury. The trial, in fact, should have occurred, but Raphael’s defense filed an appeal and there is still no update on whether the request was granted or rejected.
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