Former governor Sérgio Cabral was transferred this evening from the maximum security prison of Bangu 1, in the Gericinó Complex, in Rio de Janeiro, to the Fire Department headquarters in the Humaitá neighborhood, in the capital of Rio de Janeiro, by determination of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), taken today (5). 
In the decision, the judge summoned Olindo Menezes decided for the transfer “to preserve the physical integrity” of the former governor. In the Special Prison Group (GEP) of the Rio de Janeiro Fire Department, Cabral must comply with the precautionary isolation imposed by the criminal execution court.
As the GEP, in the São Cristóvão neighborhood, in the north zone, is in an area dominated by drug trafficking, the corporation informed the STJ that the prison unit did not offer guarantees to protect Cabral. Therefore, the place where the former governor will be held at the disposal of Justice has been changed.
In a note, the State Department of Penitentiary Administration reported that the court decision was complied with and former governor Sérgio Cabral was transferred to the Fire Department headquarters in Humaitá.
On Tuesday (3), Cabral and five other prisoners were taken to the Gericinó Prison Complexknown as Bangu 1. The transfer of the Military Police Prison Unit, in Niterói, was ordered by judge Bruno Monteiro Rulière after irregularities were found in the PM’s prison unit.
During the inspections carried out by the Court of Criminal Executions, carried out on March 24 and April 27, cell phones and other prohibited materials were seized with the prisoners and differentiated treatment for the group allocated in the officers’ wing.
Physical integrity
In the decision, the judge summoned stressed that the removal of prisoners, especially the former governor, took place “under the auspices of a certain collective guilt, without any individualization, contrary to due process of law”. According to Olindo Menezes, many of the irregularities happened more by the action and/or omission of the direction and less by the individual action of the prisoners.
The judge wrote in the decision that although the transfer and precautionary isolation of all prisoners was determined, together, Cabral’s performance “did not get to be properly personalized in the decision of origin, even because little was pointed out as relevant in what has been found in his cell, irregularly, which must be determined in due course”.
In Olindo’s assessment, despite having been determined that the transferred prisoners would stay in their own gallery in Bangu 1, isolated from the others, “it does not seem prudent to maintain the patient [Cabral] in a unit that is part of the Gericinó Complex”. The judge cited a previous decision by the Federal Supreme Court that determined the removal of Sérgio Cabral from Bangu I “due to facts attributed to other detainees in the same unit and that would be related to the ex-governor’s denunciation”.
