Brazilian police accused of torturing suspects in Blake murder

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BRASILIA, Brazil - The Brazilian government says it is investigating whether police tortured a confession from four men who said they murdered New Zealand yachting legend Peter Blake, shot dead in December while on an Amazon River expedition.

Brazilian Justice Secretary Elizabeth Sussekind said medical tests showed that four of the nine men who said they took part in Blake's murder were tortured in police custody.

"We don't know if the accused confessed because they were tortured or if they were tortured after confessing," Sussekind told reporters. "The case is being investigated."

Blake, 53, was shot dead on Dec. 5 by pirates who boarded his sailing vessel Seamaster, anchored at the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil's poor northern state of Amapa.

The killing of the sportsman who twice led New Zealand to victory in the America's Cup, yachting's top trophy, shocked the world and exposed the lawlessness that rules parts of the Amazon forest that covers an area bigger than Western Europe.

Sussekind recognised that police torture remained rife.

"There's a culture of violence, of abuse, of impunity that still exists in some sectors of the police," she said, adding that the government was clamping down on police abuse. Blake's killers would be brought to justice, she added.

Sussekind blamed the proliferation of torture partly on overcrowding in Brazil's police and prison systems.

Human rights groups have repeatedly targeted Brazil's inadequate prison systems where inmates are kept in often inhumane conditions and security is lax, sparking riots.

On January 2, 27 prisoners died in the Amazon state of Rondonia, killed by fellow inmates during a riot.

Researchers from three non-governmental bodies said that the number of violent deaths in Brazil's prisons in the last two years nearly doubled from 1998-1999 due to overcrowding, poor administration and growing gang warfare.

- REUTERS

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Peter Blake, 1948-2001