Threats prior to death

His relatives recalled that at 8:00 a.m. on the day he went missing Barbosa Lima was at home and received a telephone call. He put his hand to his head and exclaimed, “My God!” He went on to say that he had to go to the Perpetual Help Church. He never appeared again.

The following day, his sister answered the telephone. Without identifying himself, a male voice said that Barbosa Lima was tied up in Varandão (a place near the local airport), with two young men and a woman. A friend of the family told police that he had seen Barbosa Lima with a blonde woman between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. the day he disappeared, but he was not sure whether the woman was with him or it was just a chance encounter.

On two occasions Barbosa Lima said that he had received threats. At a meeting at this newspaper he told Father Andrade that “those men want to kill me,” but he gave no details. On the afternoon prior to his disappearance he called Aníbal Alves Nunes, publisher of the Gazeta da Bahia and told him that he was following followed and that he had received telephone calls telling him that he should not have published articles about the death squads.

When Baroba Lima’s body was found at the dam, it was suggested that he had committed suicide. But his family and friends have consistently denied this.

Other journalists that have denounced the death squads in Paulo Afonso at the same time have also been subjected to persecution and threats. Journalist Roberto Borges Evangelista, 44, is now an aide in the mayor’s office in Jeremoabo, Bahia state, but in the 1990s he had to flee Paulo Afonso due to threats in reprisal for allegations he had broadcast on Cultura Radio, in which he hosted a program of music and crime reports, and in the Opus newspaper, in which he openly mentioned the names of people involved in death squads. Borges was also a member of the Paulo Afonso Community Council, which oversaw prison conditions.

For a while Borges received “reminders” to keep quiet. He left the town following the death of one of the Community Council’s “clients” - a prisoner who had sent a letter from jail alleging torture by a sergeant named Martins. The inmate was found dead in a shallow grave at the entrance to the home of the Council’s chairman. He had been stabbed to death and his hands had been severed.

Like Borges, Luiz José Ferreira de Brito, known as Bob Charles, left Paulo Afonso when the threats he received became more frequent. Today he is the owner of an independent newspaper and consultant to a city commissioner, but in the 1990s he used to work at a radio station that denounced those involved in organized crime. “The police would send messages saying, ‘you could wake up tomorrow and find your mouth full of ants,’” he recalled.

Gazeta da Bahia publisher Nunes was the victim of two attempts on his life. “Every crime that occurred I would report on, but I did not give the name of those responsible, that’s why I’m alive today,” he declared. “I would report on a regular basis and that led to a group coming from Salvador to carry out a full investigation into the crimes - how they killed, how they burned the bodies; the crimes were all alike.”

Political context of the murder

In 1995, in the town of Paulo Afonso, 317 miles north of Salvador, still owed its livelihood to the São Francisco Hydroelectric Company. It had a population of around 80,000 (the 2000 census showed a population of 96,400). The dam that changed the picture on postcards of the town, which had featured the local waterfalls, brought development to the area.

Once the dam was constructed, the inhabitants of Paulo Afonso began to feel the effects of unemployment. “The Hydroelectric Company, which employed some 15,000 people in 1995, today has only about 2,000 employees, “ Nunes said. Jobs in business and construction are now hard to come by. Nunes recalled that when construction was completed a large part of the population left, others turned to farming and work in neighboring towns. But agriculture is scarce due to the long dry seasons. Ironically, the town has one of the biggest tax bases in the state due to the presence of the hydroelectric plant.

In the 1990s, newspapers and radio stations denounced the activities of death squads in the area. Nunes explained that there were two rival groups in the town. One of them was headed by Sergeant Martins, currently in jail, and the other by Captain Carvalho Lima, who died in a shootout with police. Carvalho Lima was once a city commissioner. Sergeant Martins was a subordinate of Carvalho Lima; the two had a falling-out and began accusing each other publicly of participation in deaths and robberies in the area. Father Andrade believed Barbosa Lima’s death could have been linked to the fact that he had been called, at Carvalho Lima’s request, as a witness in the trial of Sergeant Martin for crimes he had allegedly committed. Barbosa Lima had even given a broadcast interview in which he had accused the sergeant.

Martins was sentenced to 32 year in prison for having masterminded a double homicide. His name was not mentioned in the investigation into Barbosa Lima’s death. Judge Abelardo Paulo da Matta Neto of the Salvador 8th Circuit Court, who was the Paulo Afonso Criminal Court judge from 1993 to 1997, said he suspected that the sergeant had been one of the members of the local death squad. “For lack of evidence he was not prosecuted for participation in organized crime ­- justice is carried out only on the basis of proof,” the judge declared.

Using the Internet, Martins denies the accusations. On his Web site amigosdosargentomartins.vilabol.ulo.com.br/principal.html he calls himself “a leader persecuted for having denounced a powerful scheme of corruption, theft, drug trafficking, as well as other crimes committed by Bahia Military Police Captain Carvalho Lima…”

The outcry created by Barbosa Lima’s death and the murder in Glória committed by Sergeant Martins contributed to a change in the life of Paulo Afonso. Rosalino dos Santos Almeida, presiding judge of the Paulo Afonso Civil Court, and alternate judge of the Criminal Courts in Glória, Rodelas and Chorrochó (nearby towns), has worked in the area for the last 12 years. According to Almeida, Sergeant Martins was sent to prison only because an eye-witness in Glória had the courage to testify against the police in an investigation. “People in the Church began taking victims to the District Attorney’s Office and not to police headquarters because the Civil and Military Police were afraid of the sergeant.” Almeida said. With Martins’ imprisonment, the police force was restructured in the area.

Almeida is in favor of changes in the way investigations are conducted in Brazil. “What is necessary is the creation of a mechanism to investigate things when they occur. Otherwise, people forget details and evidence that could be valuable to being those who committed the crime to justice and the work is doubled in the case is lost. In most cases, witnesses change their testimony,” he declared.

Nivanildo Barbosa Lima’s death must be investigated

The flimsy police case file, opened on July 22, 1995, in the investigation of the death of Nivanildo Barbosa Lima, a journalist with Ponto de Encontro newspaper in Paulo Afonso, Bahia state, is a reflection of the disdain with which the case has been treated since then. In fact, there has merely been an examination of the body by the Nina Rodrigues Medical-Legal Institute in Salvador in August 1995, which concluded that death was due to asphyxia due to drowning. The local police at first accepted the theory that it was “death due to natural causes” and did not investigate other probable causes. On October 26, 1998, Judge Maria Auxiliadora Sobral Leite decided to shelve the case.

In June 2002, Paulo Afonso Assistant District Attorney Hugo Casciano de Sant’Anna decided to reopen the investigation in order to follow up new evidence. One year earlier, another district attorney had asked for the investigation to proceed and the police make fresh inquiries, but this did not transpire. Questioned by the IAPA on November 5, 2002, District Attorney Izabel Cristina Vitória Santos filed with Paulo Afonso District Police Coordinator Celso Lima Bezerra a request for information the progress of the criminal investigation.

Consulted by the IAPA, crime and ballistics expert Domingos Tocchetto, who has taken part in the solving of cases of national repercussion, reviewed the report on the investigation into Barbosa Lima’s death. He said that diagnosing asphyxia by drowning is the simplest way to rule out an investigation. But who can be sure that the drowning was not provoked? “There is a series of points that need clarification,” said Tocchetto, who pointed out a number of doubts after reading the document:

1. The report indicated that blood tests and analysis of the organs had been carried out, as well as the presence of alcohol, but according to the alcohol examination Barbosa Lima was believed to have been drunk. Why are the results of those examinations not attached to the file?
2. When the body was found there were rumors that it had no tongue or it had been cut out, but in the file there is a detailed description of the mouth and no mention is made of any abnormality of the tongue. Nor did any witness testify concerning this.
3. The photographs that are in the file were taken by a journalist, Anibal Alves Nunes, and not by an expert. In the photos, Barbosa Lima is shown always from the left side, where wounds can be seen to the eyebrow and ear. But the examination referred to the “absence of the lobe of the right outer ear with partial destruction.” Why did the photos show only one side if there were wounds to the other side as well? Tocchetto wondered if fish (in the dame where the body was found) ate only one ear and left other exposed parts of the body untouched.
4. In the examination of the ears there was noted that “absence of the left outer ear and of the lobe of the lung.” Tocchetto questioned whether this mention of “the lobe of the lung” was a dictation error, as it was mentioned together with the external part of the examination of the body and not the internal part.
5. The report identified a wound in the nasal region but did not explain its origin, also an irregular wound to the right eyebrow. The report considered that these wounds might have been caused by necrophagous animals, but a wound of that type could also suggest that Barbosa Lima had been beaten or hit himself before falling into the water.
6. The photographs attached to the file showed only wounds to the area of the left eyebrow.
7. The wounds were noted as having been produced by “marine” animals after death. Barbosa Lima’s body was in a dam lake - were there marine animals or was this merely a dictation error?
8. The analysis of the upper part of the skull identified a “diffuse congestion.” Tocchetto asked what did they mean by that expression and what would be the cause of a reported hemorrhaging - it could have been a blow or a fall.
9. The report did not discard the theory and did not investigate the possibility that before having drowned Barbosa Lima could have received a blow or be forced into the water. According to the expert, exhumation of the body would identify whether there are fractured bones in the head or face ­- indicating a blow. If an exhumation is carried out, it is important to X-ray the entire body to determine whether it contains any projectile.
10. Why were the final moments of Barbosa Lima’s life not investigated, and if he was drunk, who was he with?
11. How many feet from the dam was he? In what position was he found? Why did experts not take photographs at the place where the body was found?