The Federal Regional Court of the Sixth Region in Minas Gerais, Brazil, voted favorably on Tuesday to dismiss criminal charges against former Vale president Fábio Schvartsman for the Brumadinho dam collapse.

The disaster in January 2019 resulted in the deaths of 270 people.

The Court consists of three members. On December 13, the first vote in favor of Schvartsman came from the case’s rapporteur, federal judge Boson Gambogi.

This Tuesday, federal judge Pedro Felipe Santos followed his colleague’s decision, as reported by Folha de São Paulo.

With Santos’s vote, the majority for granting habeas corpus was achieved.

However, votes can be changed until the voting ends on March 12.

The court states that prosecutors did not present minimum indications of the former Vale president’s involvement in the dam breach.

Fifteen other individuals, including executives from Vale and the consulting firm Tuv Sud, are defendants in the case. However, the habeas corpus is specific to the former Vale president. All are accused of qualified homicide and environmental crimes.

According to a report presented by the Federal Police in February 2021, the breach occurred after liquefaction of the tailings during drilling on the dam.

Schvartsman’s lawyer, Maurício de Oliveira Campos Júnior, said that the executive was unaware of this drilling.

Source: MINING.COM – Read More