BRAZIL'S JUSTICE FALLS SHORT AGAIN

RIO DE JANEIRO -- When the judge announced the verdict just after
midnight--acquitting all 10 former police officers charged in a slum
massacre--the defendants fell to their knees cheering and then joyously
lifted their black-robed lawyer onto their shoulders.

Shocked with disbelief, family members of the 21 victims simply turned and
walked away.

"I thought that one or another could be absolved, but not all of them," said
Rita da Silva, the widow of one of the victims.

Five years after hooded off-duty police massacred 21 residents of Vigario
Geral, one of Rio's most violent slums, Brazil's justice system is, its
critics say, earning the country another international black eye.

Over half a decade, the system has failed to adequately punish off-duty
police involved in a series of massacres, including the infamous murder of
eight "streetchildren" near Candelaria Church in 1993, human-rights
advocates say.

Murderers are rarely tried in Brazil--just 8 percent of cases ever reach the
courtroom, police figures show--justice is slow, and while convictions often
bring showy sentences in the hundreds of years, little time is served.

Saturday's verdict, in one of the most bitter cases in recent years, brought
only more confusion and disappointment.

"This acquittal certainly leaves lots of frustration in the air," said Rubem
Cesar Fernandes, coordinator of Viva Rio, a civic anti-violence group. "The
overall expectation was they would be found guilty. People feel justice has
not been done."

On Aug. 19, 1993, according to prosecution testimony, the 10 defendants and
other off-duty police entered Vigario Geral to avenge the ambush murders of
four police by drug dealers in the sprawling slum.

The hooded gunmen sprayed gunfire into the home of an evangelical Christian
family, killing 8 of 10 adults, then threw a grenade into a bar and shot
seven patrons. Altogether, 21 people died, including two children.

Fifty-two police were charged in the murders, but only two have been
convicted. They received sentences of more than 400 years each.

Under Brazilian law, the maximum penalty for any crime is 30 years and
retrials are automatic for sentences of more than 19 years. Several police
convicted in the Candelaria killings and sentenced to hundreds of years are
expected to serve less than 10 in police barracks rather than prison.

"We sink lower all the time in Brazil. There's shameless impunity," said
Cristina Leonardo, a lawyer for the families of the Vigario Geral victims.
"This wasn't just Vigario that lost. This was a societal loss against
organized crime."

Because court action against criminals in Brazil is slow and inconsistent,
most people favor street justice by police, including executions of
criminals caught in the act.

Attempted bank robbers in Rio's posh seaside Ipanema district recently were
fatally shot in the middle of a crowded city street. Newspapers for days
carried photographs of families shaking the hands of the military police
gunman.

Persistent crime has led to broad middle-class acceptance of police
brutality against perceived criminals, including many of the city's millions
of slum dwellers.

In the Vigario Geral trial, defense attorneys presented carefully edited
jailhouse tapes in which other inmates suggested the 10 were uninvolved in
the massacre. Prosecutors dismissed the tapes as an editing-table
fabrication, but jurors apparently found them believable.

Prosecutors over five days presented voluminous evidence linking bullet
fragments to police weapons, but the exhausted jury--trials go nearly
round-the-clock in Brazil--reportedly was overwhelmed and confused by the
detail of the case.

Families of the victims and the lead defense attorney exchanged heated words
near the end of the trial after the attorney described at least one murder
victim as a bum.

"He wasn't a bum. He was my son," objected Carlos de Freitas from the
gallery. "He was an unarmed 16-year-old boy, shot in the head and the back.
Your client is a murderer."

Under Brazil's judicial system, the case will probably be retried after
appeals, in part because of the jury's split decision. The jurors, all
members of Brazil's white middle class, voted four in favor of absolution
and three for conviction, a majority decision acceptable under Brazilian
law.

Checked-by: Don Beck