Sentenced to 14 years in prison for participation in the undemocratic acts of January 8, 2023, former medical student at the University of São Paulo (USP) Roberta Jersyka Oliveira Brasil Soares, aged 37, has been on the run for 19 months.
According to information provided by the Court of Ceará to the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Roberta broke the electronic bracelet on her ankle on May 25, 2024, a little over a month after being sentenced for participation in August 1, and never appeared before the courts again, one of the demands imposed by Minister Alexandre de Moraes upon her provisional release in August 2023.
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In the last letter sent to Moraes, at the beginning of this month, the Court for the Execution of Sentences and Alternative Justice Measures of Ceará, the state where Roberta moved after her release from prison, informed that non-compliance with the court order “continues to this day”, and that her name is listed as “wanted” in the National Bank of Arrest Warrants (BNMP).
Roberta was among the group of Brazilians accused and convicted of attacks on the Three Powers headquarters who fled to Argentina. Earlier this year, the lawyer defending her in the ongoing STF criminal case indicated that she had since lost contact with his client.
Medical courses at USP in Brasilia prison
Born in Fortaleza (CE) and graduated in engineering, Roberta moved to São Paulo in 2020, after passing the entrance exam for the USP medical course. On social media, he talked about his class routine, fitness training, healthy diet, and posted photos with family and friends. But, in September 2022, the messages changed and became almost exclusively focused on politics.
In January 2023, Roberta, daughter of an army second lieutenant, went to Brasilia to participate in the act launched by Bolsonarista activists against the victory of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in the presidential elections.
She was detained within the National Congress during the August 1 attacks. She was kneeling and praying when she was arrested in the act by Senate police. Security cameras recorded the scene and the video was attached to the investigation. Due to her arrest, she stopped her medical studies at USP.
In the complaint, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) said Roberta accessed the congressional galleries, “actively participating and competing with other agents in the destruction of the furniture therein.”
According to the organization, it “attempted, through violence and serious threats, to abolish the democratic rule of law, by preventing or restricting the exercise of constitutional powers, as well as by overthrowing the legitimately constituted government, seeking the seizure of power by the army and the establishment of a dictatorship, because it is contrary to the result of the 2022 electoral elections and because it does not trust the vote count.”
In April last year, the majority of the 11 STF ministers decided to sentence her to 14 years in prison, in closed regime, for the crimes of violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, association of armed criminals and damage to classified property. In addition, the judges included her on the list of convicts obliged to pay 30 million reais in compensation for collective moral damage.
Her defense has always maintained that there was no evidence that the then medical student was involved in the January 8 acts of vandalism in Brasilia, and that the STF did not have jurisdiction to judge her because she did not have a privileged forum, a thesis rejected by the position of the majority of ministers.
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