Celso Daniel
Celso Augusto Daniel was the mayor in 2002 for the third time of the city of Santo André in São Paulo, Brazil, as a representative of the Workers' Party. He was kidnapped and murdered in the same year.
A civil engineer who graduated in 1973, from the Engenharia Mauá School, in São Caetano do Sul, he followed an academic career and obtained a master's degree in public administration from the Fundação Getúlio Vargas and a doctorate in political science from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica. He acted later as a teacher in both universities. As mayor he was connected to the United Nations Urban Management Programme. He received the 2002 Dubai International Awards for Best Practices.
Celso Daniel's murder has not been properly solved by the local authorities, and the conclusions obtained by the investigations are still under dispute; the criminals who kidnapped him have been arrested but theories about their motivation for the crime vary from suggestions that it was a botched kidnapping attempt caused by a misunderstanding of the mayor's identity to theories that the crime was politically motivated and the killers were actually paid by figures of Daniel's own political party, PT. Since the beginning of the investigation, seven witnesses have been found dead. Globoplay created a documentary about him, titled "O Caso Celso Daniel".
Kidnapping and death
Celso Daniel was fifty years old, when he held the office of mayor of Santo André for the third time, he was kidnapped on the night of January 18, 2002, as he was leaving a steakhouse located in the Jardins region, in São Paulo.According to the press, the mayor was in an armored Mitsubishi Pajero, in the company of businessman Sérgio Gomes da Silva, also known as "Shadow". The car would have been chased by three other vehicles: a Santana, a Tempra and a Blazer.
Celso Daniel was kidnapped on January 18, 2002, while leaving a restaurant late at night in the neighborhood of Jardins, in São Paulo. According to the press, the mayor was in an armored Mitsubishi Pajero, in the company of businessman Sérgio Gomes da Silva, also known as "Shadow". The car would have been chased by three other vehicles: a Santana, a Tempra and a Blazer. The car was followed by kidnappers and, near number 393 of Rua Antônio Bezerra, in the neighborhood of Sacomã, the cars managed to block their path. Shots were fired against the tires and the glasses; Da Silva, who was the driver, said that at that moment the brakes and the transmission didn't work. The armed bandits then opened the car door, pulled the mayor out of there and took him away, while he stayed in the area and remained unscathed.
On the morning of January 20, 2002, Sunday, the body of Mayor Celso Daniel, was found with eight shots, on Estrada das Cachoeiras, in Bairro do Carmo, at kilometer 328 of the Régis Bittencourt highway, in Juquitiba.
Investigation
The Civil Police of the State of São Paulo completed the investigation into the death of Celso Daniel on April 1, 2002. According to the final police report, presented by Delegado Armando de Oliveira Costa Filho, from the Department of Homicide and Personal Protection, six people from a gang in the Pantanal favela, in the South Zone of São Paulo, committed the crime. Among them was a minor, who confessed to having been the author of the shots that hit the mayor. The police investigation concluded that the criminals kidnapped Celso Daniel by chance, frustrated by losing sight of their target, a businessman whose identity was not revealed. They had mistaken him for a different person, a businessman whose identity was not revealed, supposedly the true target of the kidnapping.The member of the criminal band were identified as: Rodolfo Rodrigo de Souza Oliveira, José Édson da Silva, Itamar Messias Silva dos Santos, Marcos Roberto Bispo dos Santos, and Elcyd Oliveira Brito. The leader of the group was identified as Ivan Rodrigues da Silva. The area of his captivity was chosen by Édson, who had rented a spot in the city of Juquitiba for this purpose. Two cars were stolen for the kidnapping, a Chevrolet S-10 Blazer and a Volkswagen Santana. The gang assembled on January 17, 2002, and decided that the kidnapping would take place the following day.
On January 18, in the afternoon, the operation began. Monstro and Marquinhos left on the Santana and the other criminals went on the Blazer. Through a cell phone, the Monster coordinated all the action. The perpetrators on the Blazer began to pursue the merchant they intended to arrest, however they lost sight of him. The leader of the gang, Monstro, then ordered the group to abort the action and attack the passenger of the first imported car that was found on the way.
The group began to pursue the vehicle and eventually crashed into it. Itamar and Bonzinho exited their car firing at the Pajero and grabbed Celso Daniel from the car. He was then taken to the Pantanal favela, between Diadema and São Paulo. In the favela, the criminals took Daniel out of the Blazer, placed him in the Santana and drove him to their planned captivity spot in Juquitiba. The bandits began to travel through the streets of the region and Monstro chose the Pajero as a new target, where Mayor Celso Daniel and businessman Sérgio Gomes were traveling. The gang began chasing the mayor's Pajero, using the Blazer to ram into the back of the Pajero. Until Itamar and Bonzinho got out of the Blazer, fired in the direction of the Pajero and pulled Mayor Celso Daniel out of the car, surrendered by force. He was taken to Favela Pantanal, on the border between Diadema and São Paulo. In the favela, the bandits removed Celso Daniel from the Blazer, put him in the Santana and took him to prison in Juquitiba.
On January 19, the criminals learned from the newspapers that they had kidnapped the mayor of Santo André. They got scared and decided to give up. Monster ordered Edson to have the victim "dismissed". According to the other members of the gang, Monstro meant by that that Celso Daniel should be freed. However, Edson understood that he should kill the mayor. Edson hired a minor known as "Lalo" to kill the victim. Edson, Lalo and Celso Daniel went to Cachoeira road, in Juquitiba, and Edson gave the order for Lalo to kill the mayor. Two days later, Celso Daniel's body was found, with eight bullet holes.
Celso Daniel's family was not satisfied with the result of the first police investigation, which said that the mayor was the victim of a common crime, mistakenly murdered by a gang of kidnappers. For the mayor's family, the crime was politically motivated. Celso Daniel's brother, João Francisco Daniel, who said that José Dirceu would have received money from bribes, recanted in 2006 after Dirceu filed a lawsuit for moral damages and said that he only wanted to see his brother's murder solved.
Businessman Sérgio Gomes da Silva, who was the driver of the Pajero where Mayor Celso Daniel was traveling, said that, when he was closed by the bandits, the lock and the gearshift of the vehicle did not work, which made it impossible to escape and allowed the bandits to open the door. car door and take the mayor. An expert analysis was carried out on the Pajero and the experts' conclusion is that the car had no electrical or mechanical defect that would justify a failure. According to experts, if there was a failure at the time, it was human.
One of the prosecutors in the case showed the minor who claimed to have shot the mayor a photo of Celso Daniel. He was unable to recognize the person in the photo, and the hypothesis that he was the author of the shots that killed Celso Daniel was called into question.
The family put pressure on the authorities to have the case of the mayor's death reopened. On August 5, 2002, the Public Ministry of São Paulo requested the reopening of investigations into the kidnapping and murder of the mayor.
In August 2010, prosecutor Eliana Vendramini, responsible for the investigation and complaint that investigates the murder of former mayor Celso Daniel, suffered a car accident on an expressway in São Paulo. The armored vehicle driven by the prosecutor overturned three times after being repeatedly hit by another car, which fled without providing assistance.
Suspicious deaths of people connected to the case
After the death of Celso Daniel, seven other people were murdered, all in mysterious situations. However, in an interview given in April 2016, retired police chief Marcos Carneiro Lima, who worked in the Anti-Kidnapping Division between the 1990s and 2000s, and was a general police officer in São Paulo, ruled out that such deaths could be politically motivated.- Dionísio Aquino Severo – Celso Daniel's kidnapper and one of the main witnesses in the case. A rival faction killed him three months after the crime.
- Sérgio 'Orelha' – He hid Dionísio at home after the kidnapping. Shot in November 2002.
- Otávio Mercier – Civil Police Investigator. He telephoned Dionysius on the eve of Daniel's death. Shot dead in his home.
- Antonio Palácio de Oliveira – The waiter who served Celso Daniel on the night of the crime shortly before the kidnapping. In February 2003.
- Paulo Henrique Brito – Witnessed the death of the waiter. Got shot 20 days later.
- Iran Moraes Redua – The undertaker who recognized the mayor's body lying on the road and who called the police in Juquitiba, died of two gunshots in November 2004.
- Carlos Delmonte Printes – Coroner who attested torture marks on Celso Daniel's corpse, was found dead in his office in São Paulo, on October 12, 2005.
- Manuel Sérgio Estevam, Sérgio Orelha – Friend of Dionízio, with whom he shared a cell in the Avaré Penitentiary. Sérgio sheltered Dionízio in his apartment as soon as he escaped from prison. Orelha would be assassinated in September 2002.