President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said today (19) that the death of the then rector of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Luiz Carlos Cancellier de Olivo, in 2017, was an aberration. Cancellier committed suicide after being targeted in Operation Deaf Earsan offshoot of Lava Jato, triggered by the Federal Police (PF) to investigate an alleged embezzlement of public resources in distance education courses.
“It’s been five years and four months since this man killed himself under the pressure of an ignorant policy, an ignorant prosecutor, foolish people who condemn people before investigating and judging,” said the president.
In addition to being arrested and removed from office, after being released, Cancellier was banned from entering the institution. In the same year, UFSC was the target of another operation, as well as other universities in the country. In 2018, the PF closed the investigation due to lack of evidence.
“I want to take this moment, with a delay of five years and four months, and say that your flesh may have died [em referência ao reitor Cancellier]but his ideas will continue to be with us every time we think about education, every time we think about the professional and intellectual training of the Brazilian people,” said Lula.
“You can be sure that there are a lot of people here willing to continue the work you did and the ideas [em] that you believed. You died, but your ideas are still alive and we will recover them and work so that we never allow what happened to that rector in Santa Catarina to happen again”, concluded Lula.
Operation
Launched in September 2017, Operation Ouvidos Moucos investigated suspected embezzlement of money from distance learning programs at UFSC. The investigation resulted in the arrest of the then dean, Luiz Carlos Cancellier de Olivo, and six other people. He was released the next day but was unable to attend university again. In October, the former dean committed suicide. Cancellier left a letter criticizing the way the investigation was done.
