COOPERATION BETWEEN United States and Brazilian law authorities has resulted in the arrest in the United States of a Brazilian fugitive who was convicted of two murders in Brazil, including the killing of a labour leader in the country's Amazon region in 1991.
In a May 2 statement, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said Jose Serafim Sales was arrested near Boston by agents of ICE and the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
That State Department bureau conducts passport and visa fraud investigations world-wide and is responsible for security at 285 U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world.
ESCAPED FROM PRISON
ICE said Sales was the trigger man in the 1991 assassination of Expedito Ribeiro de Souza, president of the Union of Rural Workers of Rio Maria, who was shot twice in the head and once in the back as he left union headquarters in Rio Maria, a city in Brazil's northern state of Para.
ICE said the assassination prompted outrage in Brazil and the international community.
Sales subsequently was convicted of the murder and, in 1995, sentenced to 25 years in prison by a court in the Brazilian city of Belem on the Amazon River. He escaped from prison in March 2000.
ARRESTED BY ICE
In June 2000, a local Amazon rancher was convicted of ordering the assassination of the union leader that Sales carried out, said ICE, which is the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
In addition to the murder of the trade union president, Sales has been convicted of another murder in the Rio Maria area and is charged with a third homicide in Brazil. U.S. law enforcement agents located Sales in Boston and arrested him on April 25 without incident, said ICE.
Fingerprints provided by the Brazilian Federal Police matched those taken from the suspect arrested in Boston.
ICE said it shares information on a 'routine basis' with Brazilian federal police on suspected fugitives and criminals.
"We will not allow the United States to be a safe haven for murderers and human rights violators," said Matthew Etre, acting special agent in charge of ICE in Boston.
The United States has begun the process to return Sales to Brazil to face justice, said ICE.
Reported by the Washington File, a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.
