Superior Court Orders Release of Black College Student Who Claims He Was Framed

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Almost two months ago, young Gabriel Apolinário, 18, was forced to change his address. After being arrested by state police officers in Jardim São Luís, in São Paulo’s southern zone, he left the apartment where he lived with his parents, a few kilometers from where he was approached, towards the Belém II Provisional Detention Center, in the eastern part of the capital.

The marketing student was arrested on drug trafficking charges, but according to the family, the flagrante delicto was forged by the PM. After his first appeal was rejected, attorney Bruno Borragine, who is defending the young man, appealed to the Federal Superior Court (STJ).

STJ Judge Sebastião Reis Júnior, on Thursday, September 11th, ordered the student to be released. In his decision, he considered the detention disproportionate and recalled that, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, procedural arrests should be decreed with utmost exceptionality.

“At first, given the circumstances in which the facts occurred, the personal conditions of the perpetrator (first arrest, with no priors) and due to the pandemic caused by Covid-19, the procedural arrest should take place with the utmost exceptionality. Thus, the substitution of prison by preventive measures would be proportional and appropriate to the circumstances of the case,” wrote the judge.

Messages collected in the proceedings show that a week before the arrest, Apolinário had been threatened by police. “I was almost arrested. Their car was packed with drugs. They were going to forge it. He said he was going to take me so he could move up in rank,” the young man told a friend.

On the day of the arrest, CCTV footage shows that the student went out wearing sportswear and no backpack. To another friend, he said he was going out jogging. He never came back.

CCTV footage shows that Gabriel was walking without a backpack shortly before he was approached.

The police said he did not carry drugs, but pointed out the location of a backpack, allegedly concealed in a nearby bush, with 208 cocaine bags, 487 suppositories containing cocaine, and 20 plastic wrappers with marijuana.

After being arrested, the student sent a note to his family: “Hi, Mom. I’m fine. Pray for me. I wasn’t dealing. Thank you for caring. All I think about is you out there. I love you.”

From then on, the judicial imbroglio began to release the young man and prove his version of the approach. After a frustrated appeal and a copied decision, according to the defense, the STJ allowed him to return home, in an order that was served on Friday, September 11th, but his acquittal still needs to be secured.

“The full evidence will be submitted before the criminal proceedings,” says the student’s attorney.