A de opened an inquiry against a journalist from Portal Metrópoles after he published a report on the financial movements of a Deic (State Department of Criminal Investigations), the agency’s elite division.
Police investigation, subordinate to the Government (Republicans), was classified as a “attempted censorship” and the creation of an “intimidating environment” by press freedom defense agencies, such as Fenaj (National Federation of Journalists) and Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism).
Delegate Fábio Pinheiro Lopes, Fábio Caipira, former director of Deic, was one of the police cited in the allegations of Vinicius Gritzbach, accused of money laundering for the (first command of the capital), killed in November last year.
Fábio Caipira and two other delegates of his team in December after Gritzbach’s denunciation became public by state government decision. Gritzbach claims to have received a financial agreement to suspend investigations against him at Deic.
In March, the Metropolis reporter published. Vassallo is the journalist who discovered, last year, the scheme of irregular discounts on retirement that became the (National Institute of Social Security).
According to Metrópoles, the deic investigation was opened at the request of the former director of the department, for “alleged practice of crime against honor”, in the 2nd division of cyber crimes.
“It is important to highlight that all the information contained in the article is correct and that the delegate Fabio Caipira was heard in person before the publication. We published the report after the delegate was removed from Deic’s direction by the Tarcisio government,” said the director of Metropolis in Sao Paulo, Fabio Leite.
“The public interest is undeniable in this case. The legal department of Metropolis is already taking care of the defense of the journalist in this abusive procedure,” adds Leite.
In a statement, Fenaj stated that “episodes like this show that the use of institutional power to pursue press professionals is still a worrying practice. Democracy requires free journalism and respected journalists.”
A Sheet He sought the Secretariat of Public Security, a body controlled by Guilherme Derrite and commanding the Civil Police, and the Tarcisio management to comment on the case, but had no response until the publication of this report.
