“We stopped an activity that was going to have more deaths, more young people, more schools attacked, more mass crimes, more human suffering”

The arrest of a minor under 17 on suspicion of violent crime and connection to attacks in Brazil has halted the existence of other crimes, the national director of the Judiciary Police (PJ) assured today.

Speaking to journalists, Luís Neves gave further clarification on the operation announced by the PJ on Thursday, which took place in conjunction with the Brazilian authorities, and highlighted that the detainee is the “only Portuguese who is currently identified”, highlighting the “ leadership capacity” to instigate other young people to commit crimes via the Internet, especially in Brazil, where he was associated with the attack on a school in Sapopemba.

It is a work of repression, but also a global preventive work”, he said, highlighting the “barbaric acts” and of an extremist nature that were widespread in the group on the Internet platform in which this young man operated.

According to Luís Neves, the phenomenon of encouraging violent crime through social networks and the Internet is something that “greatly concerns” the PJ, which is why the investigation will continue.

“We are already in contact with Europol, because we have the feeling that there are other behaviors of the same type. It will be a job to multiply the investigation. We are working against the clock. There are more suspects, but not on national territory. We don’t have any evidence that allows us to point in that direction,” she said.

Regarding the young man, who was present today as a judge for his first interrogation at the Central Criminal Instruction Court (TCIC), the director of the PJ highlighted his profile as a mentor for that online community, considering that “he had enormous leadership capacity to move other young people of the same age, especially Brazilians, in order to radicalize others, to self-mutilate, to commit crimes”.

Luís Neves assumed that identifying the young man was like “finding a needle in a haystack”, describing a “time-consuming and filigree” work since the end of last year, when the facts were communicated to the PJ. In this sense, he warned that families should pay “greater attention” to young people and the risks of their social isolation, presenting an example of another crime that was being prepared.

“One of the crimes that was being planned in Brazil was a homicide with a hint of the prolonged suffering of a beggar, in which these images would be transmitted in the cyber environment and in which each assistant would pay a certain amount. We are talking about a set of crimes that were made impossible,” he said.

According to the statement released on Thursday by the PJ, the investigation was conducted by the National Counterterrorism Unit, with the young Portuguese being suspected of the crimes of qualified homicide, offenses against qualified physical integrity and discrimination and incitement to hatred and violence, as well such as committing child pornography crimes.

with Lusa