Amazonas federal judge Mara Elisa Andrade ordered the Federal Police to return wood seized in an operation that has sparked friction between federal police Alexandre Saraiva and environment minister Ricardo Salles.
The decision complied with a writ of mandamus filed by the Associação Comunitária da Gleba Curumucuri.
In the decision, given this Tuesday (4), the judge said that the investigation is in its initial phase, “showing the fragility with the ostensible and restrictive persecutory acts of rights and freedoms (such as the seizure of property) practiced when the finding of crimes and their authorship was still uncertain, and making it impossible to find well-founded reasons for doing so. ”
The federal police operation, which started last December on the border between Pará and Amazonas, culminated in the largest seizure of native wood in the history of Brazil, as shown by Folha. Over the past few days, agents have retained 131,100 m3 of logs, enough to build 2,620 low-income houses.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon