Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jun 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
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Author: Stephen Buckley, Washington Post Foreign Service

WITNESSES KILLED IN BRAZILIAN DRUG PROBE

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 12 - At least 30 people who helped, or planned to 
help, the Brazilian Congress in a nationwide drug trafficking investigation 
have been killed since the probe began 14 months ago, a member of the 
investigating committee said today.

The slayings are evidence of how extraordinarily difficult it has been for 
the government of Latin America's largest and most populous nation to 
attack a culture of lawlessness and impunity that has become deeply rooted 
throughout this country of 170 million people.

The deaths almost certainly will put more pressure on the federal 
government to strengthen its efforts to protect witnesses who have 
testified at the congressional hearings, which touched numerous public 
officials in virtually all of the nation's 26 states.

None of the people killed was in the government's witness protection 
program, although they had indicated that they wanted to be, said Pompeo de 
Mattos, the congressional committee member who learned of the slayings in 
preparing the probe's final report. The report is to be released later this 
month.

"They wanted the protection, but it didn't come on time," de Mattos said. 
"Why they didn't get it is a very good question."

De Mattos said he is certain that in the coming weeks officials will learn 
of others who have been killed in connection with the investigation. The 
congressman said that virtually all of those slain were killed in the past 
six months by various methods--shooting, stabbing, blowing up. He said the 
killings occurred in four states, and many of the victims were police 
officers who had participated, or had been scheduled to participate, in 
congressional hearings.

At least two of those slain were killed by corrupt police officers, de 
Mattos said, but the vast majority of the cases are unsolved and Congress 
is pushing the federal police to step up investigations.

The congressman said those killed "were either people who were supposed to 
testify, had already testified and were supposed to say more, or people who 
had already said too much."

The director of the government's witness protection program, known as 
Provita, confirmed that none of the victims had received protection, but 
said it was not clear whether they had requested it. Gustavo Ungaro said 
that none of the 170 people in the program "has been injured, much less 
killed." Most of them had taken part in other government investigations.

The congressional investigation of drug trafficking was the first of its 
kind in Brazil, and it became a daily feature on the national evening news. 
During the hearings, hundreds of witnesses, many of them hooded or shielded 
by a screen, testified about the intricacy and reach of the country's 
various drug trafficking networks.

Dozens of people, including police officers and politicians, already have 
been indicted. But officials said scores, perhaps hundreds, more will be 
indicted after Congress releases its final report.

Among the most important catches in the investigation was a former member 
of Congress, Hildebrando Pascoal accused of overseeing a drug-trafficking 
and robbery network that led to hundreds of deaths and involved numerous 
public officials in his home state of Acre, in western Brazil.
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