BRAZIL: Death threats and intimidation are part of Detective Francisco Badenes' job, writes Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
During almost a decade of investigating organised crime in the regional Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, Detective Francisco Badenes has been subjected to various forms of intimidation, ranging from death threats to lawsuits for harassment.
However, in 1996, the Brazilian Government gave him its National Human Rights Award.
Badenes has been on a visit to Ireland for the past fortnight as a guest of Frontline, a Dublin-based organisation which supports human rights defenders around the world.
While here he has met representatives of the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Since 1993, Badenes has been investigating a paramilitary group called Scuderie Detetive Le Cocq (Shield of Detective Le Cocq, or SDLC). Named after a slain police officer, this group is alleged by human rights groups to have ties with organised crime and highly-placed members of Brazil's business and law enforcement communities.
In that year he was named as the head police investigator of the Commission for Special Administrative Investigations, set up by the Espirito Santo state governor to probe a series of murders of street children.
The SDLC operates as a legal organisation and has characterised itself as "A beneficent and philanthropic institution, not for profit, with the objective of serving the community".
Investigations by Badenes have led to numerous arrests of police personnel linked to the SDLC. On November 20th, 1995, Badenes presented his findings on the SDLC to the Human Rights Commission of Brazil's Federal Chamber of Deputies, drawing upon 5,297 pages of documents, nine video-tapes and two audio-cassettes. In a chapter entitled, "On the System of Complicit" he wrote: "In the judicial branch, testimony is postponed whenever it refers to an influential person . . .In the public prosecutor's office, investigations are not followed up . . . In the civil police department, evidence gathered by experts disappears or is manipulated. Confessions are forced to protect the real culprits. Alibis are forced."
He concluded his presentation by requesting that the group's legal authorisation be revoked.
Badenes confiscated the SDLC's archives and computers, using this material to back his claim that the group's illegal activities extended beyond the execution of homeless minors to drug trafficking, car theft and illicit gambling.
He also used the documents to portray a network of collusion involving prosecutors, defence attorneys and judges to secure the release of fellow-SDLC members accused of crime. On January 20th, 2000, Badenes made a second presentation to the Human Rights Commission of the Federal Chamber of Deputies.
He provided an organisational chart depicting senior political figures at the top of a criminal syndicate with ties to right-wing politicians.
In November 2000 the Federal Chamber of Deputies created a Parliamentary Commission on Drug Trafficking. The commission's report condemned SDLC influence in Espirito Santo.
Badenes, a slim, wiry man in his mid-forties, says he was inspired in his youth by tales of the knights errant and their chivalrous deeds.
His decision to exchange the good life of surfing and hang-gliding for the dangerous world of policing was "little understood by my family".
He says the difficulties he has encountered are a result of the fact that "exclusion results from an honest pursuit of humane justice".
"As a spiritual person, I know there exists the possibility of dying while performing my job. But I will never concede to living and hiding behind a wall of cowardice or negligence and serve as a mere tool to illicit interests," he says.