The families of the ten boys who died in a fire in CT do Flamengo, known as Ninho do Urubu, in 2019 protested this Wednesday (22) after the Rio de Janeiro Court’s decision to acquit all seven defendants in the case.
In a statement, the Association of Relatives of Victims of the Ninho do Urubu Fire, which brings together mothers, fathers, siblings and other relatives of the victims, stated that the acquittal represents “a serious affront to the memory of the victims and the feelings of the entire society”.
“The acquittal of the accused, on the grounds that it was not possible to individualize technical conduct or prove a criminally relevant causal link, renews in us the feeling of impunity and weakens the mechanism for protecting the lives and safety of minors in sporting entities”, adds the text.
According to the order of judge Tiago Fernandes de Barros, of the 36th Criminal Court of Rio de Janeiro, the acquittal is based on “the absence of demonstration of criminally relevant guilt and the impossibility of establishing a safe causal link between the individual conduct and the ignition”.
The Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro will appeal to the 2nd instance of the state Court of Justice. In May, the MP-RJ had called for the conviction of all those accused of the crime. “The disastrous episode, which became known as the greatest tragedy in Flamengo’s history, could and should have been avoided”, says an excerpt from a note released by the organization.
When contacted by the report, Flamengo stated that it will not comment on the court’s decision.
Márcio Garotti, Flamengo’s financial director, Marcelo Maio de Sá, deputy director of assets, Claudia Pereira Rodrigues, responsible for signing the contracts, Danilo Duarte, engineer, Weslley Gimenes, engineer, Fábio Hilário da Silva, engineer, and Edson Colman, partner of the company responsible for maintaining air conditioning units, were acquitted.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office had requested the conviction of the seven defendants after hearing 40 witnesses in the long criminal investigation, which lasted four years since the case was reported to the Court, in January 2021.
Eleven people were reported to court, but the accusations against two of the accused were rejected because they were not linked to the incident; another was summarily acquitted on the understanding that his actions did not contribute to the crime and a fourth, the former president of Flamengo Eduardo Bandeira de Mello – now 72 years old –, reached the age stipulated in the Penal Code that would give him the right to have his sentence reduced, which resulted in the case becoming time-barred.
For the Public Ministry, the tragedy could have been avoided. The criminal case pointed out that the CT operated without a license due to the absence of an approval certificate issued by the Fire Department. The place, according to the prosecutor’s office, had already been closed and fined several times.
Electrical irregularities and lack of preventive maintenance on air conditioning units are some of the failures highlighted by the investigation. The fire, according to the agency, started due to a short circuit inside one of the air conditioning units.
Furthermore, the containers that functioned as accommodation had one barred window per room, sliding doors that got stuck during the fire and a single exit door that was decentralized and far from room 1, where the ten young people died. All of this made it difficult for the teenagers to escape.
There was no fire-fighting system and there was material inside the steel sheets without flame-retardant treatment. This highly flammable material caused the fire to develop quickly, as shown by technical expertise.
Read the note from the association of mothers, fathers and families of victims
The Association of Relatives of Victims of the Ninho do Urubu Fire (Afavinu), which brings together mothers, fathers, siblings and other family members of the ten fatal victims of the tragedy that occurred on February 8, 2019 in the accommodation at the Flamengo base, expresses its profound and irrevocable protest in the face of the decision handed down by the 36th Criminal Court of the District of the Capital of the State of Rio de Janeiro, which acquitted in the first instance all the seven accused in the criminal case resulting from this tragedy.
We understand that the role of Justice is not limited to applying the law in individual cases, but performs an essential pedagogical function in preventing new similar episodes, in sending a clear message to society that security negligence, failures in the technical structure and irresponsibility will not be tolerated — and not fulfilling this function constitutes, for us, a serious affront to the memory of the victims and the feelings of society as a whole.
Let us remember that the young people who died — teenagers in training, base athletes — slept in improvised containers, without adequate permits, with signs of electrical failure, window bars that made it difficult to leave, among other unsafe conditions.
The acquittal of the accused, on the grounds that it was not possible to individualize technical conduct or prove a criminally relevant causal link, renews in us the feeling of impunity and weakens the mechanism for protecting the lives and safety of minors in sports, training or assistance entities in the country.
AFAVINU will continue in search of Justice and in the hope that the decision will be reviewed and thus reiterates its request that the process be rigorously monitored by the appeal bodies so that society receives the message that such conduct will not go unpunished.
So that the death of these teenagers is not in vain, we will continue to demand from inspection bodies (municipal and state) and public authorities in general — including sports, youth and building inspection — the implementation of concrete measures to make frequent audits and preventive maintenance mandatory in accommodation for athletes, young people/minors in all clubs in the country, so that irreparable tragedies, such as the one at Ninho do Vulture, don’t repeat yourself.
We reaffirm that the memory of young people will not be silenced: their names, their lives cut short in avoidable circumstances, demand that we remain vigilant.
The judicial decision, by not recognizing criminal liability, represents a serious failure of the justice system in its pedagogical role — and as such, reinforces in us the duty of civil mobilization to strengthen the mechanisms of supervision, transparency and responsibility in spaces for training young people.
We call on the press, human rights organizations, sports movements and society as a whole not to allow this decision to become a precedent that the safety of children and adolescents can be treated with criminal negligence. The lives of our children have an irreparable value and in memory of the 10 innocent boys we will fight, until the end, for effective justice capable of inhibiting new crimes with sentences that protect the victims and not the perpetrators.
To Flamengo fans and everyone who loves football and children, AFAVINU makes an appeal: that the passion for the clubs also translates into a commitment to life. May the love for sport, which moves millions of hearts, also be a love for safety, ethics and the memory of those ten boys who dreamed of wearing, with pride, the red-black shirt or other sacred robes. True sportsmanship requires empathy, responsibility and humanity. Honoring these values means protecting future generations of athletes and ensuring that football continues to be a source of joy — never mourning.
