The Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro appealed the court decision that acquitted the seven defendants accused of arson at Ninho do Urubu, as the Presidente George Helal Training Center, which belongs to Flamengo, is known.
The fire, in February 2019, killed ten teenagers and caused bodily injuries to three others. They were all young athletes from the club and were staying on site.
The appeal is signed by prosecutors from Gaedest (Specialized Action Group for the Defense of Integrity and Repression of Tax Evasion) and the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the 36th Criminal Court of the Capital.
According to prosecutors, the tragedy was the result of a series of negligence and omissions on the part of managers, engineers and technical managers, who had the duty to guarantee safe accommodation conditions, which characterizes conscious guilt.
According to them, the absence of a permit, the various notifications from the Public Ministry and the fines from Rio City Hall indicated that the installation was clandestine, illegal and dangerous.
For the Public Ministry, those responsible for Ninho do Urubu had the obligation to offer adequate accommodation, with flame retardant material, emergency exits, maintenance of air conditioning units and a sufficient number of monitors to guarantee the safety and integrity of the teenagers.
Judge Tiago Fernandes de Barros, of the 36th Criminal Court of Rio de Janeiro, acquitted in October seven people accused of the crime of arson.
The acquittal was based on “the lack of demonstration of criminally relevant guilt and the impossibility of establishing a safe causal link between individual conduct and the ignition”.
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.
The acquitted defendants are people who occupied positions with interference in the CT, were responsible for the containers intended to house the teenagers and also for the maintenance of the air conditioning units.
The families of the ten boys protested after the Rio de Janeiro court’s decision to acquit the 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.
