Name Unknown
21 Oct 2021
Viana, Espírito Santo (Brazil)
Beaten and strangled
TDoR list ref: tgeu/tdor2022/21-Oct-2021/Name Unknown
The victim was killed by two other inmates of Penitenciária de Segurança Média II (PSME II). Her identity was not reported.
The family of an inmate claims compensation for moral and material damages against the state government for the murder of her daughter, a transgender woman who was serving a sentence in the Medium Security Penitentiary II (PSME II), destined for LGBTI+ prisoners. The victim was killed on Oct. 21 by a cellmate, who had the help of two other inmates to commit the crime.
The family is seeking compensation for moral damages in the amount of R$ 100,000, in addition to material damages in the amount of 1/3 of the minimum wage up to the victim's average life expectancy, which according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), or until the applicant's death, i.e. that of the mother of the murdered woman.
When the crime occurred, the State Department of Justice (Sejus) announced that the incident had been registered by the Civil Police (PC) as a suicide and that four inmates testified at the Department of Homicides and Protection of Persons (DHPP), which instituted a police inquiry by the Prison Crimes Police Station to investigate. The inquiry states that "a notice of arrest in flagrante delicto" was issued against the three detainees who participated in the crime. The family's lawyer, Antonio Fernando Moreira, defends, in the compensation claim, that no action was taken to guarantee the victim's survival, "just a prison opening, supposedly for only LGBTI+ inmates, for [the public] to see."
The statement is based on the fact that one of the killers declares himself to be cisgender in the National Prison Information Survey (Infopen) and that he does not belong to the LGBT+ community. According to the account given in the indemnity claim, he fired a "narrow bang" against the victim and held her neck for some time. Then another detainee placed his legs over the woman's legs so that she would stop struggling and making noise.
Then, the inmate who gave the "narrow-naked choke", still holding the victim's neck, asked a third party to take a sheet to hang her, a request that was complied with. The attacks ended only when death was confirmed. As stated in the indemnity claim, the detainee who started the violence practices martial arts and said he was motivated by the food debt. He had also tried to kill another cellmate the night before, as his intention with the crimes was to be transferred to another prison. This is not the first murder committed by the criminal, as, according to the document, in December 2019, according to a complaint filed by the Public Ministry of Espírito Santo (MPES), he beat another inmate to death at the Vila Velha II State Penitentiary (PEVV II – Xuri).
The Medium Security Penitentiary II (PSME II) was inaugurated on May 26 of this year and is the first exclusive and reference prison unit for the LGBTI+ population in Espírito Santo. It has a capacity for 296 custodians and works in the Viana complex. Its purpose is to ensure that there are no rights violations to this group.
